Stop wasting my time with nonsense!
By
Afterimage,
Posted on: 2009-10-24 08:14 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I still want the ability to drop outleveled arcs, or just those long as hell hero ones that I've gotten bored of and don't want to run 10 more missions from so that it won't count against my active arc limit. I wouldn't even care if I forfeit most or all the merits, I don't want to go back and do missions full of grey-cons anyway.
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The reason why I asked about the dude's mother was because there was no point in seriously arguing someone that took a METAPHOR for a LITERAL statement. See below:|
Originally Posted by Tyger42
If it ends, there's something beyond the end even if it's a void. The "universe" may not be infinite, but space is. Time is also infinite.
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Originally Posted by Darkest
The human mind has "inifinte" potential? Are you kidding me? Infinity is just a concept. We have to assume that it's just a concept. The universe? Yeah, bloody huge, but can you prove it's infinite? No. Speed? Yeah, you can go bloody fast, but as far as we're concerned, it's impossible to go past the speed of light, because you tend towards "infinite" mass and that's when things start imploding.
Yes, TECHNICALLY, the human mind has infinite potential, and yes, TECHNICALLY, you could argue that they'll never run out of ideas... Thing is, the likeliness of that happening is so stupidly low it's not even worth considering. You'd need an infinite number of developers (once again...not possible) with an infinte number of concepts (again, will never happen) and an infinite time period (REALLY, REALLY, IMPOSSIBLE) in order for your argument - which I'm taking as "Of course they could just churn out new stuff forever, the human mind has infinite potential so it must be." or some variation - to hold sway here. |
...So I just stepped out of it in the only way I could, with bad comedy.
What I WOULD have said, if I thought there was a point in arguing with such a person, is that my INTENDED meaning was that each single human mind has so much creative potential that it could create a lifetime of entertainment for people in a relatively short time. Go look at some of the works of the great Sci-fi and fantasy fiction authors that are still endlessly discussed and read over and over again by GENERATIONS of people even after their deaths (Tokein, Bradbury, etc.). So a TEAM of people have the capacity to create "infinite" (translated yet AGAIN to the dim-witted as VAST) amounts of entertaining stories.
Sure people "run out" of ideas once in a while, but that's just a result of needing more exposure to OTHER people's ideas outside of the inner circle. When people run out of ideas, they need to immerse themselves in the world of others to spark more creative juices of their own. There's a reason why the major cities are a hotbed of writing talent. Not just because there's more people so more people that could become writers, but also because more people INTERACTING with those writers create more stories by their very interactions.
That's what I WOULD have said, if the guy wouldn't have taken the metaphor literally. A shame.
The thought occured to me that perhaps these "manditory contacts" can be resolved in a different way. You know how certain contacts send messages now? The Mission Architect representative and the Midnight Squad contacts will send a quick message and then their contact will appear for you to choose to go to. Well why not do the same for the others?
So at level 6 instead of being part of someone else's mission requirment (which has no buisness being there anyway), how about having a pop-up of Lt. Wincott appear with a message asking for help and then you can choose to go there or not. Same for Stephanie Peebles at Striga Isle when the player reaches 20.
Then make the same apply to the PvP contacts. Have them become contacts with but a single mission... to learn about the PvP area. They met, they talked, mission over. There is only one that may be a problem, and that would be the Kings Row Hero Corps contact for difficulty levels. Maybe that could be changed just by having to meet ANY Hero Corps NPC, or change the contact over to Henry Peter Wong in Atlas Park.
Then at least there would be some consistancy in the game.
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"With Me - Against Me" Mission Arc 230667
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If the patch notes for the i17 said that this is what the issue was about, I'd be overjoyed. Heck, if the patch notes for GR said this is what it was about, I'd be overjoyed. As it is, I PUG to 35, then do the RWZ arcs in between more PUGs.|
Originally Posted by Demobot
First: replace the original contact models with models created with the costume creator. Most modern contacts use the player model and player-available costume parts, with some having unique parts. This may seem like an odd suggestion, but the old models are really ugly and could use a major facelift.
Second: get rid of duplicate contacts. There are a number of contacts that share the same arcs. Double the contacts does not mean double the content. Third: make the contact MATTER. Your contact should have a personal involvement in the story, either by showing interest and concern through dialog or by showing up in the missions themselves. They don't have to be the star, but the contact should be meaningful to the story in some way. Most original contacts don't figure into the story at all and are utterly forgettable and completely interchangeable. Fourth: cut the fat. Rewrite the longer arcs and remove the pointless fluff missions that don't advance the plot. We don't need to clear out 5 different warehouses when we'll get the point after clearing out just one. Scrap the boring arcs or rewrite them to be at least somewhat interesting. And cut out the non-arc missions. Most of them, anyway. Doing these things not only removes a lot of the disparity between the old and new content but it also encourages longtime players to level characters through content rather than powerlevel past it. One of the attractions of powerleveling is being able to skip the boring crap. |
My Big Problem #2 with hero missions is one that Demobot hinted at above: There's too much fat. It was probably needed before, but the levelling speed nowadays is way higher than it was back in i1. If I have a character at 28 and feel like running a PUG, I can pretty safely bet that grabbing a normal contact will be a waste of time. After they make me run to New Zealand and back a few times to talk to the security chief, they'll give me six standalone missions with brilliant plots like '[X enemy faction here] has taken Y lawyers hostage for no apparent reason].' By time I get to the story arc, I'll be two bubbles from outlevelling it... and it will take twice as long as it ought to to complete, thanks to doubling up half of the missions and making others kill-alls for no apparent reason.
My villains, on the other hand, do contact missions as much as possible starting from level 5.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
Personally I would like a line of code added that reads your character's Veteran status. If you have a certain level of months logged-in the system can just assume you know all about the PvP zones, the AE Corps walk-through, the Faultline arc, etc and never mention them at all.
My mind wanders so often you've probably seen its picture on milk cartons. - Me... the first person version of the third person Steelclaw
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Just this morning I was playing my new DA/Electric tanker, and started into Willy Starbuck's Skulls/Hellions story arc. Got about three missions into the arc and then he gives me the "Speak to Hero Corp Analyst" thing.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
go visit the Hero Corps field analyst in Kings Row
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Before the arc is one thing.
After the arc is another.
During the arc is <bleeping bleepity bleep!>
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Unless something changed in the past year, this is the opposite of true.
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Originally Posted by Afterimage
The Security Chiefs are completely optional, you never have to take their missions, and not taking their missions won't block you from any other missions. If you contact only gives you Security Chief missions, then he or she is out of other missions.
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Okay, since you're repeating this, what I experienced with security chiefs last year:|
Originally Posted by Afterimage
I don't think that you are right about that. Except for Atlas Park and Galaxy City (I'm beating up Hellions anyway) I quit doing the Security Chief missions a long time ago, and I haven't been locked out of any content whatsoever. They are not mandatory.
If you aren't being offered a story arc mission, it means that either the contact doesn't have a story arc mission for you; or that contact doesn't want to offer his story arc to you until you have improved relations with him or her; or it means you already have the maximum number of story arcs open. If you don't want to do the Security Chief mission, then do the other mission the contact offers. Every contact has non-story arc missions in addition to story arc missions. Of course if you don't like the contacts non-story arc missions, you are screwed. But that has nothing to do with the Security Chief missions. Sometimes a contact will offer up two of his or her non story arc missions, even if there is no Security Chief mission up. |
I do a single contact's missions until eventually, that contact is only offering a hunt and the security chief. I do the hunt, and then there's only the security chief. So I switch to a different contact, and see immediately that the contact is offering a hunt or security chief. So I take the hunt, and the contact is only offering security chief. Repeat for every single contact in this level range. Once I take the security chief mission, I suddenly see missions at every contact.
What you are saying is not how it worked for me, and it's not how it's worked for other people. You probably missed a significant number of missions because you assumed there was nothing else for the contact to offer.
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| I think that you are making a mountain out of a molehill. All you had to do was not pick a contact at the far end of Independence Port if you didn't want to make a long series of trips, for whatever missions, until the contact was willing to give you his call button. |
It's totally Sam's fault for getting a contact at the far end of IP, and not that the game had a certain inflexible design for the first seven issues that persists until now.
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This is exactly how I feel. In fact this whole thread is like an explanation of why I vastly prefer playing redside to blueside.|
Originally Posted by Cybercel
This kind of thing is a large part of why I barely play hero-side these days. CoV doesn't really suffer from this issue. There are a couple of points where you're asked to go talk to people, but it's pretty much just the PvP zone reps and Seer Marino, and none involve a huge amount of travel. The devs even thoughtfully placed Seer Marino next to a helicopter from Cap to Mercy.
I'd love to see some of these clunky mechanics and pieces of outdated design cleared up on hero side - the game would be so much more polished for new players, and I might go back to the many abadoned heroes I have. It does especially seem a shame when we know the tech is there for auto-introducing contacts, seeing as it's used extensively villain side, and in a few places hero side. |
Someone wrote in one of the GR threads that redside will be dead after GR's launch, as everyone will be able to play the redside ATs on blueside where they can get teams, and it just didn't ring true for me. Sure, I prefer redside ATs to blueside ATs (all except for Blasters, who I can't wait to take redside), but I also prefer redside content to blueside content, hence why 14 of my 17 L50s are on redside. GR's appeal for me is that, after a completely new newbie experience, I'll be able to play blueside ATs on redside where the best quality content is - hopefully a lot more people will think that way too. GR could be the "saviour" of redside.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
The Security Chief, IMHO, should (a) be moved to the newspaper and/or (b) be a "Click him specifically to get his hunts" style mission.
Last but not least, we know contacts can be "introduced" without having to talk to them, with the popups we get at various levels. Give a checkbox to "Move to inactive" or something similar and I think everyone would be happy. |
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Originally Posted by Demobot
My biggest worry with Going Rogue is that it will merely highlight just how poor the original hero content is.
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Originally Posted by Demobot
This is the other major problem with the original City of Heroes content: the contacts are, for the most part, mission dispensers with no character at all.
This needs to change. First: replace the original contact models with models created with the costume creator. Most modern contacts use the player model and player-available costume parts, with some having unique parts. This may seem like an odd suggestion, but the old models are really ugly and could use a major facelift. Second: get rid of duplicate contacts. There are a number of contacts that share the same arcs. Double the contacts does not mean double the content. Third: make the contact MATTER. Your contact should have a personal involvement in the story, either by showing interest and concern through dialog or by showing up in the missions themselves. They don't have to be the star, but the contact should be meaningful to the story in some way. Most original contacts don't figure into the story at all and are utterly forgettable and completely interchangeable. Fourth: cut the fat. Rewrite the longer arcs and remove the pointless fluff missions that don't advance the plot. We don't need to clear out 5 different warehouses when we'll get the point after clearing out just one. Scrap the boring arcs or rewrite them to be at least somewhat interesting. And cut out the non-arc missions. Most of them, anyway. Doing these things not only removes a lot of the disparity between the old and new content but it also encourages longtime players to level characters through content rather than powerlevel past it. One of the attractions of powerleveling is being able to skip the boring crap. |
Like you say blueside contacts are just forgettable mission dispensers - from L1 until L30-35, I find - only then do you start getting a single contact per origin/level-range offering a certain arc, so you can recall easily who offers what (e.g. Gordon Stacy is the only one who gives "The Revenant Hero Project" arc). It's particularly insane at L20-25 where there are 6 contacts for each of the 5 origins offering the same content, all based in either Talos or Indy Port. One of the origins - science - has no arc in that range, so you have 30 contacts at L20-25 across two zones, with only 5 "pools" of missions they draw from, but only 4 story arcs in total for that range (and a ton of filler).
By comparison CoV arcs are shorter and more fulfilling, there is a story-based reason their contact is offering them, the story is clearer and more focused, they are more memorable and they have less single mission filler before/after - and some CoV contacts offer multiple arcs.
If the Devs do revamp the blueside contacts (hopefully cutting them down to 1 contact per level range, per origin) then all the one-off filler missions they remove (hunts included), that have nothing to do with the arcs, wouldn't have to be wasted - hunts could be added to the Security Chief of the zone they're set in as repeatable missions, and all other filler could be added to the newspaper (lord knows it needs some handcrafted missions in there).
Then the only other change I'd like to see is mayhem and safeguard missions either being added to Ouroboros, or once you outlevel them have them being selectable from the brokers that can offer them (with an auto-exemp feature), because at the moment they're the only content in the game I feel is mandatory in each level range on redside, as you need the explore badges from them for an accolade power, and it's a hassle to obtain them later if you miss any.
However I'm more than willing to wait until after GR for all of this and I'd trade most of it away in exchange for getting some new map tilesets for indoor maps - running around the same offices, sewers, warehouses, labs, etc. is getting samey after 3+ years. Often I can get 20% of the way into a map and know off by heart the layout of the entire map from there to the end.
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Agreed!
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Originally Posted by Flarstux
Just this morning I was playing my new DA/Electric tanker, and started into Willy Starbuck's Skulls/Hellions story arc. Got about three missions into the arc and then he gives me the "Speak to Hero Corp Analyst" thing.
Before the arc is one thing. After the arc is another. During the arc is <bleeping bleepity bleep!> |
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"With Me - Against Me" Mission Arc 230667
Holy Cow its not just me. Where n the heck is the material that created this awesome game. I agree Sam. We are being cheated. Sure we get updates and bare with me guys i hate typing so i do little of it n hate to do it correctly i type as i think. If they could make all those powers at the introduction of Coh/cov where is this creativity now. I understand those that want more tf's n cities but last i looked n cimeora its always empty practically AE had more traffic not seen n eons. What they do nerf it n chase us out.
Broadcast is more silent for lft n tf joining than ever. Yes maybe we lost peeps to champions online hmm. Is this not a clue to posi to answer some of our cries. Stop indian giving, give us awesomeness and taketh away. Slow with io releases i didnt know making newer better io's was hard. Recycled powers are tired. Sad they know this they are ltao at us grumbling. AE was nerfed because fast lvling and noobs not learning the story didnt know it was a priority some of us just want to have fun. Ask Sam vets who are tired of same ol same ol after two 50's are on your account i think you learned all u gonna want to learn.
Teach a noob dont get mad at em thats why we have sg/vg. All this dag-on running around city to city, just to talk lmao again by 2nd 50 it should auto shut off. We know what those contacts want. Let the noobs help em lol.
Graphics are fine spend more time making at least 3 new not recycled power sets every issue release. I thought thats why we make new toons to try other sets well by now you'd think they understand we tired of the old ones.
All this maintenance but same stupid problems. No please dont say we made a new city for you to enjoy we dont enjoy, make creative missions why we only see snow missions around christmas time. Volcano miss be nice. I dont know we pay for them to think outside the box not basic here u go guys. Ive read all kinds of sweet power set ideas they could use on the forums I guess they think we will sue for a cut lol.
I for one would enjoy to be able to fish not to copy but FF11 had awesome fishing thg not needed be nice thg. Fish for io's of course lol. Market needs an overhaul something serious like at least having the item and a base price.
Sorry lots of ranting and i know the haters will eat this up, the Posi ball handlers and defenders lol. Have at thee. I am just a vet who wants newer enjoyable content not another irrelevant its part of the story mumbo jumbo. I love the story yeah 3 years ago when i was a still kinda noobish but even noobs grow to become vets while still playing the noob content, aw man sure this is only my 800 time killing same av's,eb's with same ol powers n a diff fashion. I want crab spider ideas not heres earth assault now guys see how u like it. Ive seen better creativity from the forums that seems to ever remain silent n unsung sigh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Waiting to exhale lol. Can u guys either apply for these jobs or them give u 2 months free and 2 rare io's for great ideas and use them.
I will end with no SAM KEEP ATTACKING your pain is my pain and the quiet or scared to say others GET EM BOY!!!!!!
I think there may have been a few good points in there, but my eyes hurt now.
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You're doing it wrong. You can't stop reading until your eyes are gushing blood.
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Originally Posted by Lazarus
I think there may have been a few good points in there, but my eyes hurt now.
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I fully agree with the OP. I have pretty much the same reaction every time I get those missions. I see the mission listed in my new contact's dialogue box and *facepalm* say to myself "Look... I know who Wincott is. I know he's in The Hollows. I know he needs my help. I already know this. Now, can we please move on?" Ditto that with Jim Temblor,Gordon Bower, Seer Marino, etc.
Just have a contact window pop up when you reach the right level/do the right thing to unlock the contact a la Doc Buzzsaw, Admissions Officer Lenk, etc. Yes I realize that that would require some re-coding, but certainly much less than making powers customizable. As for the "new content vs. QOL" priority.. it seems to me that we have a whole lot of new content coming out way with GR. I don't think it'd hurt to iron out a few QOL issues prior to that.
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Originally Posted by Kelenar
After they make me run to New Zealand and back a few times...
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