I would love to see something like this, but wasn't there a dev post way back that said they wanted to avoid puzzles because either they eventually become repetitive themselves or frustrate players that might not understand how to resolve them?
What kind of balance would you think the devs need to create for something like this in order to keep the players excited yet not want to hunt them down and pelt them with rotten fruit?
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Have the missions provide the series of clues that the player can either figure out themselves or take back to their contact to see if a second head can give them additional insight (i.e., point the character more blatantly in the right direction). Figuring out the clue on your own earns you points that you'd be able to trade in for something, like temporary powers.
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Originally Posted by Unknown_User
I would love to see something like this, but wasn't there a dev post way back that said they wanted to avoid puzzles because either they eventually become repetitive themselves or frustrate players that might not understand how to resolve them?
What kind of balance would you think the devs need to create for something like this in order to keep the players excited yet not want to hunt them down and pelt them with rotten fruit? |
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The idea of solving problems is interesting, but this is a pretty big turn off. One thing I hate in a lot of older MMOs (or MMOs back at release) were cryptic messages about what I should be doing. ("Go to some cave North of here and do X.")|
Originally Posted by Steelclaw
And if you can't figure it out... then you can go to ParagonWiki to get the answer or (if you're RPing it properly) quit the arc and take the loss.
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They can be very cool - it gives a good sense of adventure and has a lot of RP flavor. I really do dig quests/missions like this when they're well written/implemented. When not, however, they're really frustrating. I really dislike having to alt+tab out of games to read what I should do next. Yes, I've done it before, but it's gets tedious very fast, especially when running into a lot of them at once.
Srmalloy has an interesting solution around it, but it has a problem of its own - if given the choice between convenience (in this case, a contact telling you what to do next) and reward (looking it up online, out of game), a lot of players will choose reward. Think about it, if a contact offered you a free recipe/temp power if you could answer a trivia question, would you look up the answer online if you didn't know it? I'm betting yes - I know I would.
Unfortunately I don't have a good answer to the problem. I seem to be better at finding pitfalls than I am at devising solutions, which means I come off more negatively than I would like. Bah.
In theory, I like the idea.
But in practice, I'm sure that people will either ask on thier global or go to ParagonWiki to avoid the "penalty" of having the contact figure it out for you.
Well, isn't that sort of the point?
This aspect of the game does not have to be a MUST-DO. Actually, if you look at it nothing in the game is mandatory. Think of this in the same way you would badge hunting.
You don't HAVE to get every badge in the game. They're there for any player who would get a kick out of collecting them. The same thing applies to this aspect. If Batman is your favorite hero ever because he was a Detective and actually SOLVED crimes rather than simply beating up a series of bad guys, then this system would offer you the chane to emulate him.
If, on the other hand, you really just wanted to lay the smackdown and collect your prize, more power to you.
I love SrMalloy's suggestion. It would be the perfect way to provide an out for those who don't want to try the system. Rather than a merit reward, I would prefer to see an influence/prestige bump similar to that for clicking glowies in certain missions. Nothing game changing, just a little congratulations.
It's meant entirely as flavor. As someone who used to adore the Sly Cooper games, I am very much aware of the frustration of "figure out this puzzle/complete this level or you can't go any further" situations. This is like most other aspects of City of Heroes... you can play it if you like it and skip it if you don't.
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Okay. I like having options.
Since I-1, we've been getting more and more options. (Being able to drop missions, being able to have more than ONE at a time, etc.)
If you don't mind that many will skip this, then cool.
I've already had to play "find the mission door" with one particular redside arc that's been bugged for several issues. At least with your example, I'd have a clue and I'd give it a shot. Particularly if I knew there was a small reward for doing so.
(If the reward was small, I also wouldn't mind too much if I had to say "screw it" and take the easy way out.)
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I think that's a weak dodge by the devs. Puzzles don't have to take any specific form. That is: A puzzle could come in any number of ways. There are ways to create puzzles that have different solutions.|
Originally Posted by Unknown_User
I would love to see something like this, but wasn't there a dev post way back that said they wanted to avoid puzzles because either they eventually become repetitive themselves or frustrate players that might not understand how to resolve them?
What kind of balance would you think the devs need to create for something like this in order to keep the players excited yet not want to hunt them down and pelt them with rotten fruit? |
I actually tend to think that mini-game puzzles would work best for an MMO for in-mission stuff. The hacking puzzles in Biosock are a good example and a better one would be the Tri-corder puzzles in Star Trek Elite Force 2. That's the sort of puzzle that can generate random solutions so it's never the same way twice(or at least not very often).
The example that Steelclaw gave could be refined by having the clue send you to a location and then maybe having you trail an NPC to find where they are going and who they are talking to. You get too close and they get suspicious, but stay too far back and you risk losing the trail.
The puzzles don't have to be complex, but they also shouldn't have solutions that you can just Google either. The hacking in Fallout 3 could be very difficult and had no designated solutions that you could just look up. It required some skill and luck.
There are ways to do this kind of stuff. I think it can add some much needed variety to the gameplay we have without significantly changing it too much so it's not COX anymore.
Maybe only in high level content... 20-50, perhaps. By then you should be acquainted enough with the layout of the zones.
to 
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While there might not be any actual puzzles, I think GR will have more stealth stuff in it than we have in the game right now.
First, becasue that old NCSoft marketing survey mentioned a "spy AT" as part of the expansion pack that's become GR, so that even if the actual AT is dropped, it seems like stealth was going to be an important part of the expansion, and as almost every single thing mentioned in the survey has been added to the game, or is going to be added, I think it's very possible that some of the spy AT ideas will still be in GR.
Second, the whole Praetorian setting of GR is very well set up for spying or stealth activities, with infiltration by the Resaistance into Tyrant's city, or loyalists into the Underground being way more important to the overall storyline than anything we have in the game right now.
And third, the Shadowy Presence power that comes with the GR Complete Colletion gives you invisibility as long as you don't actually move from where you're standing - which seems like that might be times in GR when avoiding passing patrols is going to be important, rather than just fighting any enemies you run into.
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While I have always loved the idea of 'detective missions' there hasn't yet been a suggestion that, to my mind, would be practical in the long-term.
Having clues to mission doors is all well and good, but it doesn't work after the first time and, as people have pointed out, many won't even bother with it that first time and will either skip it or look up the answer. There would have to be so much of it that by the time you have finished it all you are likely to have forgotten previous puzzles and, if there were that much of it, it would likely become more of an irritation that a challenge.
If there could be some kind of variable, repeatable and above all non-tedious way of having some form of detecting or puzzle-solving I would be all for it. For the moment, however, I don't see anything that would be satisfying rather than plain bloody annoying!
I, for one, do not approve of anything of this sort.
This is one of the huge reasons why I didn't like WoW (when I was in the beta for it 5+ years ago). I get a quest, "Go talk to x person in y city." I can find the city easily enough (since it was on the map) but finding that one person? ugh....annoying!
I don't like "wasting" time looking for something.
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Mankrik's wife...?|
Originally Posted by Energizing_Ion
I, for one, do not approve of anything of this sort.
This is one of the huge reasons why I didn't like WoW (when I was in the beta for it 5+ years ago). I get a quest, "Go talk to x person in y city." I can find the city easily enough (since it was on the map) but finding that one person? ugh....annoying! I don't like "wasting" time looking for something. |
...Well, this situation would make it more fun that scouring a massive zone for a clickie, anyway.
I would love stuff like this.
None of the reasons against really work to thwart such ideas, in my opinion (But that's all it is... opinion).
I'd love for different ways to "put clues together".
I don't like always just turning to the contact to tell me what to do next in the story arc.
After I find something out in the mission... I don't need the contact to tell me we better get this THING over to that EXPERT or (more so) when we find out a certain faction has gotten involved in some mystery... going to round up a bunch of them and "interrogate" them to find out whatever you can... I'd love to just decide that myself.
Anyways... long day, late night... Not the best of examples on my part... But yeah, I'd love to have the chance to do some of our own detective work, definitely.
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Maybe one way to implement clues is make it something similar to how they do the Deadly Apocalypse event in-game, when searching for the Greater Mystic Aspect. Without solving the clue you have a vague general idea of where the mission is, solving it will give the player a more accurate location.
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"Whar is Mankirks' wife?"|
Originally Posted by NightErrant
Mankrik's wife...?
...Well, this situation would make it more fun that scouring a massive zone for a clickie, anyway. |
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I think this would probably be the best solution to adding some change to the game. It still allows you to take the easy way out by returning to your contact, but also lets you earn a little extra reward for being self sufficient.|
Originally Posted by srmalloy
Have the missions provide the series of clues that the player can either figure out themselves or take back to their contact to see if a second head can give them additional insight (i.e., point the character more blatantly in the right direction). Figuring out the clue on your own earns you points that you'd be able to trade in for something, like temporary powers.
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It would have the added benefit of not needing to return to the contact in those first few missions as well if set up properly.
I want to point something out here that deserves to be said - whatever you do, DO NOT include word riddles. I think I've proven that I have sufficient command of the English language, but even so, being a non-native speaker, none of that stuff EVER makes sense to me. As a very easy example, think of just about any Japanese game translated into English and look at what happens to its riddles. Say, Silent Hill or Resident Evil. It's English, we all know what the words mean, we can even follow the sentences, but... What the hell is any of that stuff even talking about? It doesn't make sense, let alone allude to an answer.
As was already mentioned, probably the BIGGEST failure of MMOs, at least as far as obvious failures go, is vague instructions. Every time I've tried to play Lineage II, I've been told to go to some plateau North of some place to look for some kind of critter to kill. I don't know where the place is. When I find it, I can't find the plateau off of it. When I find something that looks like a plateau, it doesn't have the enemies I need on it. So I basically pick the "Screw you!" option on those quests and just drop them entirely.
Combining obscure riddles even more obscure knowledge utter in-game trivia (show of hands, who knows where Coroman Manufacturing is?) is just a recipe for frustration. It's all well and good to suggest that people can just cheat (and looking up the solution to puzzles online IS cheating), but this runs afoul of two problems. Firstly, any new system designed for the game needs to have some kind of return, and I'd bet my metal-tipped tail that not many would bother with these things, and many fewer will bother twice over, what with how we remember all the damn instance maps by heart. Secondly, being given a task that you CANNOT finish without cheating is irritating and actually insulting to a good number of people, even if you can just click it away, ESPECIALLY if it's part of your mission.
I mean, seriously. Does anyone think it's a good idea for Roy Campbell to tell you to look at the back of the CD and leave you scathing your head?
I don't mind having systems to handle detective work, even though it doesn't make sense for all heroes (and villains) to be detectives. But NOT the kind of detective work you'd find in your average point-and-click adventure. As anyone who's played, say, The Curse of Monkey Island will tell you - once you've done it, you know what to do. These sorts of "figure it out" puzzles only really work in one-playthrough games, which an MMO is most decidedly not. The only puzzles we could have that would work are randomisable puzzles or actual minigames, and I guarantee that these will bug the HELL out of a good number of people the moment they were integrated as part of regular content.
The most I can see is simulated detective work, where you gather salvage pieces called "clues" and end up "inventing" actual evidence in the same why that the Lost Curing Wand is created. It would put more tangibility on clues if you had them in your inventory, rather than having a bit of text saying "You took this plot device from a named boss. It is important." The developers once said that anything earnable through the regular rewards system should be earnable through though Inventions, so that's a good place to start looking.
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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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Well, Samuel_Tow, it is fairly obvious that you don't like this idea and I can see your point. I however would like to see a little flavor added to the game in this way. We have enough missions where "we just run to the door", "go talk to this guy and and do what he tells you", or "find this many of XXX and kill/arrest them". It might be kinda neat to get some more viarety than that.
I agree that the word games might be difficult for non-native english speakers, but that is why I (and some others) suggested allowing players to return to the contact if they can't figure it out. If they can figure it out on their own then give them a merit or two as a bonus.
In a way we already have something similar in some Strike/Task Forces in that we are to to go to a certain area of a zone and kill 20 of XXX. Only problem is you are not told what zone it is and any kills outside of that zone don't count. Personally I like that kinda stuff.
This idea would just add some more variety to the game and that is not necessarily a bad thing.
This is a great idea and would add another layer of realism to the game. I'd love to be actively involved in my missions rather than the current tank and spank missions.
The developers could make it optional, if you want to figure it out on your own you can do that, and if not you can go back to your contact where they will figure it out and spoon feed you the information.
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I like this 'detective-work-based-on-salvage-clues' idea - maybe you could have random drops which were mob specific, you gather a few and combine them to unlock a special mission featuring that mob type...perhaps different clue elements could be used to generate missions similar to newspaper missions, but with more control; you find an enemy-type 'clue', a job 'clue' (robbery, kidnap, etc) and a location 'clue' (warehouse, cave, etc) and you combine the elements into a 'lead' that would unlock a mission featuring those elements - sort of 'Architect-light'. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The most I can see is simulated detective work, where you gather salvage pieces called "clues" and end up "inventing" actual evidence in the same why that the Lost Curing Wand is created. It would put more tangibility on clues if you had them in your inventory, rather than having a bit of text saying "You took this plot device from a named boss. It is important." The developers once said that anything earnable through the regular rewards system should be earnable through though Inventions, so that's a good place to start looking.
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It would give street sweeping a purpose other than grinding xp/inf if beating up a few dozen Skulls gives you a lead on a robbery that some Bone Daddy is planning; it would be a little more immersive than just listening to the radio/reading the paper too (although much slower, these would have to be extra missions, and a little more interesting to be worth the effort unlocking them).
I would like to see more general 'puzzle' stuff too, but whatever they add has to be totally optional, or it will just annoy some players.
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Agreed. I've actually suggested this before in a similar fashion, and I still feel the idea has some merit to it. Let me see if I can remember what I had...|
Originally Posted by Bull Throttle
I like this 'detective-work-based-on-salvage-clues' idea - maybe you could have random drops which were mob specific, you gather a few and combine them to unlock a special mission featuring that mob type...perhaps different clue elements could be used to generate missions similar to newspaper missions, but with more control; you find an enemy-type 'clue', a job 'clue' (robbery, kidnap, etc) and a location 'clue' (warehouse, cave, etc) and you combine the elements into a 'lead' that would unlock a mission featuring those elements - sort of 'Architect-light'.
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Randomly beating up thugs in the street has a certain chance of dropping you a "clue" in the form of a recipe that needs unique salvage to make. This recipe could either give you several missions to gather "evidence" from in the form of special salvage, or could possibly require evidence dropped by the same enemy faction. Once you have enough evidence, you can "act" on the clue by inventing it, generating a sort of showdown mission.
There are a few ways to go about this, but I don't mind being able to get the evidence before the clues. Actual detective work sees that a lot. A detective would get a new clue and suddenly realise it makes sense of several pieces of evidence he already had but didn't know the significance of.
Like, say, you're beating up the skulls and you get a Superadine sample with a crossed swords logo on it, you get a surveillance tape of some guy talking about a drug deal and a fairly expensive gold watch. Doesn't seem to make sense, until you get a clue which suggest a a rich businessman may be involved with the Skulls in some way. His stationary has a crossed swords insignia, the voice on the tape belongs to his lawyer and the gold watch belongs to the guy. Well, that makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?
This would add an extra element of depth, more than a little unpredictability and quite a bit of extra variety without actually browbeating people into going to outside sources to look for walkthroughs. Granted, some might suggest that that system would call for a walkthrough just as much, but since EVERYONE from a given faction would drop this stuff, all you'd need to know is which faction you want to strike out against. And the missions themselves don't need to be complicated. A simple paper mission bust is enough, at least in my eyes.
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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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This makes sense. The system doesn't need to be overly elaborate, it just has to mesh with the game well.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Like, say, you're beating up the skulls and you get a Superadine sample with a crossed swords logo on it, you get a surveillance tape of some guy talking about a drug deal and a fairly expensive gold watch. Doesn't seem to make sense, until you get a clue which suggest a a rich businessman may be involved with the Skulls in some way. His stationary has a crossed swords insignia, the voice on the tape belongs to his lawyer and the gold watch belongs to the guy. Well, that makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?
This would add an extra element of depth, more than a little unpredictability and quite a bit of extra variety without actually browbeating people into going to outside sources to look for walkthroughs. Granted, some might suggest that that system would call for a walkthrough just as much, but since EVERYONE from a given faction would drop this stuff, all you'd need to know is which faction you want to strike out against. And the missions themselves don't need to be complicated. A simple paper mission bust is enough, at least in my eyes. |
I personally would like to see something like this implemented sooner rather than later since it would make fighting badguys on the streets mean something again. Also, something like this can be used to do all sorts of things, like adding extra bits of lore and story to a player's experience rather than having to do an entire arc.
It would work for especially well for players who have heroes that are the 'street protector' types and maybe don't want to do some of the story content.
In terms of stuff inside missions, I'm actually not opposed to small randomisable puzzles if they are used in the right way. For instance, a puzzle minigame to hack security computers to trigger some security bots to come out and help you fight as little pets would be one thing I could see happening. If you fail to hack the system, then the mission is done just like a normal mission. You haven't 'lost' anything really.
In the end, I think it's about creating a more heroic/villainous experience for the player and doing a bit more to break up the formulaic mission to mission grind.
Personally, I like the idea of a little 'detective' work as a hero/villain in the game.
It seems the main concern is that some players may not want to engage in this, seeing as it'll break their flow of the game, while others are looking for a little 'spice' in the game that'll make them think or interact just a bit more than what is currently available.
In Issue 12, with the Hollows revamp we got Meg Mason, where you can do repeatable missions in the Hollows. The player doesn't HAVE to go to her; she's in the contact list, however, there is no mandate for her to have to be seen.
Along that same line, since we have a police station/Arachnos base in many of the major zones, how hard would it be to include a new contact in the police stations/Arachnos bases that would provide a 'detective'-like set of missions/arc? Again, like Meg Mason, you'd see the contact on your list the first time you enter a level-appropriate zone, however, it doesn't have to be a mandate to use that contact; no other zone contacts should point to that contact in the police station/Arachnos Base (of which could be a Detective/Marshall, for example).
In so doing, the first line of the text for the first mission/meeting can state at the top "THIS IS A DETECTIVE/HUNTING MISSION ARC" in orange or green or something of the sort.
As mentioned, word puzzles don't have to be part of it. Instead, maybe the player can find not only clues upon mission completion, but maybe salvage (be a great way to recycle some of that old base salvage), or a recipe crafted for creating a one-time use temp power of a NPC hologram message distress/final location message. Another idea is to get salvage/return to a contact with a series of clues received and get a 'key' to get to a door/location to solve the mysetery (much like Halloween salvage is used to get a costume slot). It was kinda done with the Midnighter's "Cure the Lost" Arc with the wand, but instead of crafting a wand, you can get a key to a final mish location or the such.
Anyway, I'm just spouting ideas now, but I agree with the premise of having some type of solving/detective mishes/arcs that are seperate from the mainstream contacts so you can exercise your mind a tad, or RP a bit.
... and no... it's not a joke list this time.
I didn't put this in suggestions because I figure it's too late for them to implement in Going Rogue at this point. Here's my thinking...
1) They announced in Issue 17 that you will be able to just drop missions without using the auto-complete feature.
2) They have announced in the past that Praetoria will be a different kind of zone. Instead of just a series of random doors for instanced missions (where the door you just left after fighting Council now magically holds Hellions moments later) the buildings will be there for specific missions and interiors.
3) There have been hints and now proof that choices the players make will influence how the successive missions unfold.
All this got me to thinking how very COOL it would be if we could actually do some detective work ourselves. What brought this to my mind was leaving a mission and having this dialog pop up: "You put together all the clues and realize they point towards the radio station WNRK Anarchy Radio! You'd better head on over there."
I put the clues together? That's a switch. Normally I turn in all the information to my contact and THEY tell my ignorant little self what all the clues mean and where to go next.
What I would LOVE to see in Going Rogue are missions that let the players try to ferret out the answers. For example... you find a clue on the last boss you defeated that reads "Meet me where the Eagle joins the Lion, I'll be waiting with the microchip." When you leave that mission there is NO navigation star, only the message "Find the meeting place." You have to figure out all on your own that the answer is Griffon, the mythological beast joining lion and eagle parts. Searching the city finds you at the Griffon Arms Hotel. You click on the door and voila!
And if you can't figure it out... then you can go to ParagonWiki to get the answer or (if you're RPing it properly) quit the arc and take the loss.
I would love this feature to be part of the game; it would be a welcome change from the random missions or the railroad track guided stories.
My mind wanders so often you've probably seen its picture on milk cartons. - Me... the first person version of the third person Steelclaw