Want a Notice of the Well solo? That'll be...
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-02-10 19:03 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I agree that it would/should be easy, but we don't know that it will be countered/limited at all.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
I've already addressed the 'One Notice Per Week' point, which is (or at least should be) very, very easy to counter with the limitation mechanics already in game.
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| It is a complete fiction that the 'Normal Way' is teamed content. It is purely viewed as such because that is the way the majority of the industry and MMO players see it as such. And just because the majority see it what way does not make it a truth. |
Note that we're not talking about people that only group here. We're talking about people who refuse to group vs 'people who solo some and also group some'. If you were to define 'normal' behavior for a MMO the latter case is surely it.
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You've already spoken on the devs' intentions in thsi thread, why shouldn't they?
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Oh really?
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were you even playing this game when that was said?
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I refuse to believe that "people that go through content faster than it is designed to be consumed" are a majority. The last time we heard from the devs on the matter, "people with level 50 characters" was the minority. If you don't have a level 50 character, you cannot belong to the category of "consumes content too fast".
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I can't/won't speak to CoH itself, but as far as the MMO industry goes on the whole that is absolutely the biggest gripe. Players go through content orders of magnitude faster than it can be created.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I refuse to believe that "people that go through content faster than it is designed to be consumed" are a majority. The last time we heard from the devs on the matter, "people with level 50 characters" was the minority. If you don't have a level 50 character, you cannot belong to the category of "consumes content too fast".
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That devalues the trials. The trials are difficult. Only one team succeeded during the first sneak peek window. If you give people a "slower" route, then you'll have some team based players who figure out if you exemplar to level [X] and farm in area [X], that you can get very close to the same reward rate as trial players without the messiness of actually needing to learn the encounters. |
Originally Posted by Starjammer
I would think the most efficient answer would be to time-gate a maximum number of earnable Notices per week, regardless of source. At least, it makes a lot more sense to me to do it via that route than to attempt it through valuation.
The tech and the practice are already precedented with A-merits and Gr'ai Matters. I think if it were possible to earn 1 per week through purchase, 1 per week through WST and 1 per week through ITs it would be workable. I think that would also be a fairly good balance between the "slow solo" route and the "preferred teaming" route. 3:1 is about the difference between earning merits on TFs and merits on story arcs, if I'm not mistaken. |
The devs set the rate very high to make it so that the team path is not only faster, but so obviously so that only the most ardent soloers will choose that path.
The only real option for a solo path is to create a content based path which can't be easily farmed and is of similar or more difficulty than the team based content.
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.
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Another thing on this point. When discussing the Incarnate content, we're talking about SOLELY level 50 characters. They are the only ones who matter in this discussion since lower level players can't engage the system at all. So the question is whether the majority of persons who play at level 50 are casual or not. Not whether the playerbase as a whole is.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I refuse to believe that "people that go through content faster than it is designed to be consumed" are a majority. The last time we heard from the devs on the matter, "people with level 50 characters" was the minority. If you don't have a level 50 character, you cannot belong to the category of "consumes content too fast".
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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.
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The problem is that Notices are not gated at one per week even now. Its the WST that is so gated in terms of its rewards using task force diminishing returns code, so far as I know. Unfortunately, the evidence I have for this is against the forum rules to discuss.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
It's completely hand waveable if Notices are gated at ONE per week. No matter the source. I'm pretty sure that isn't some sort of coding Holy Grail would consume a silly ammount of resources to implement.
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Everyone who thinks they can write two lines of pseudo-code thinks they know how the engine is written. While you are thinking about how easy or hard it is to add this feature to the game, let me give you another problem to think about. Back in I9 I discovered a bug in Pool B drops. Pool B drops were supposed to have a 10% chance to drop per mission complete. So I'm sure somewhere in the game, using your pseudo-code logic, there was a statement that said if random > 0.1 then DropB.
The bug: the drop was actually happening 7.14% of the time. The devs confirmed the bug, never told me what it was, and never told me what the remedy was. But they *did* tell me at the time that it was tricky enough that they were leaving it like that for the time being. So I don't even know if it was *ever* fixed.
Must have been a really busy week, that they couldn't just change the 0.0714 to 0.1 in the code. And that was a really strange typo to make.
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Talking of drop bugs, some people have been geting 2 NotWs on one KTF this week - so that's a potential 176 Shards saved in less than an hour of playtime 
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
No, not really.
I've already addressed the 'One Notice Per Week' point, which is (or at least should be) very, very easy to counter with the limitation mechanics already in game. |
The time limitation mechanics are IMNSHO the worst parts of the game with the possible exception of untradeable items. Adding more and more things that you can't at least play beat the clock with removes more and more of the game portion of the game, and reduces it to a very resource intense screensaver
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You're still not helping.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Talking of drop bugs, some people have been geting 2 NotWs on one KTF this week - so that's a potential 176 Shards saved in less than an hour of playtime
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It's not speed burning through content that's an issue. It's speed relative to reward. You don't have to look any further than Broadcast when an AE exploit is live to see what I mean. When players are offered a "path of less resistance," they will rush toward it like moths to a flame. It doesn't even have to be obnoxiously broken - it just has to be slightly better than what they can get by other means. Systems that over-reward for less effort trivialize the game and cause people to avoid content that has had substantial time and effort put into it, but that does not reward at the same rate.|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I refuse to believe that "people that go through content faster than it is designed to be consumed" are a majority.
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That is what the devs have to balance against: Basic human "want it NAO!" psychology, which has the potential to undermine the integrity of the game if it's catered to.
The key question in finding the conversion numbers has to be, "At what point are the requirements for soloists strictly worse than those for the players engaging in the behavior we want to incentivize, but not so much worse as to demotivate them?" Because you can't make the soloist path better, or easier for team-oriented players to get than when using the system as designed, if any long-term goal for the game involves incarnate content getting played.
Do I think the 88-shard equivalent for a Notice is on the steep side? Yes. But I would have been completely stunned to see anything less than 50 for the key ingredient to create the rare boost.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
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People who don't have 50s yet are hardly the target audience for end game content I would think. So they're not really relevant for this discussion. (Except that it might serve as an extra incentive for the push to 50.)|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I refuse to believe that "people that go through content faster than it is designed to be consumed" are a majority. The last time we heard from the devs on the matter, "people with level 50 characters" was the minority. If you don't have a level 50 character, you cannot belong to the category of "consumes content too fast".
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Considering the devs sudden focus on end game content I'm also tempted to assume that the number of people with 50s have rissen somewhat.
It's also not just "people that go through content faster than it is designed to be consumed" that they're balancing against. It's also people like me. I'm not a power gamer or speedrunner. I don't farm, min/max or marketeer. I have raised 7 lvl 50s in the 54 months I've been playing. All my characters are built for concept first. None of them have purples/pvp recipes. In the weeks that I play this game (which is 50/50 nowadays.) I do 1-2 TF/SF's on average. (The WST brought that up to 4 this and 3 previous week.) The majority of my time goes towards soloing or small team play. Obviously there's a spike in my activity when new stuff gets released. All in all I consider myself a pretty average, casual player in terms of investment in the game.
As it stands now, the shard cost is too high for me to consider crafting a NotW. The inf cost I consider trivial. If they lower the shard cost by half I'd be tempted to not bother with the WST if it's a TF I don't particularly care about.
@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.
I'm glad they are adding this in for those of us who prefer to solo.
I intend to give some of the Incarnate Trials a whirl, since the Turnstyle should make it easy.
But, I generally dislike TFs (not fun to me), so I'm not sure I'll ever make a habit of the IncTrials (fun remains to be seen, but TFs don't give me much hope for these).
Having an alternative is nice, even if it is slower.
Now, I do hope they tweak those numbers down some. Slower is one thing, but that looks ridiculously slower given the shard drop rate. The cash money part isn't relevant. As noted by others, by the time you earn the shards, you'll have the cash.
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That actually sounds like it'd be a great place for things to be. "Hmm - I don't like this week's WST, but I could run it anyway in a couple hours and get my Notice and be done, or I could do this other stuff I actually like doing, spend a bit more time at it, and get my Notice that way." I would think that would actually be the ideal balance point for such things.
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Originally Posted by TrueMetal
As it stands now, the shard cost is too high for me to consider crafting a NotW. The inf cost I consider trivial. If they lower the shard cost by half I'd be tempted to not bother with the WST if it's a TF I don't particularly care about.
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Good luck with that. As has been explained over and over again, that wouldn't be a particularly ideal balance point. It would lead to devaluing the WST and over-rewarding team based players.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
That actually sounds like it'd be a great place for things to be. "Hmm - I don't like this week's WST, but I could run it anyway in a couple hours and get my Notice and be done, or I could do this other stuff I actually like doing, spend a bit more time at it, and get my Notice that way." I would think that would actually be the ideal balance point for such things.
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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.
In all honesty, there still isn't a solo method. This is the equivilant to when badgers were slapped in the face with "one infected in RV every two hours. Good luck!"
Yes, it should be harder to get a notice solo but there is no reason it should be insanely time consuming like this. I heard the number of 400+ hours being estimated to get one notice completely solo.
So your options are as follows.
1 TF that takes about an hour, two max
400 hours of solo grinding. (which is longer than some people have played their mains over the course of years.)
Seriously? I see no reason why this option needs to be in the magnitude of several hundred times more difficult. Just for ONE notice. This needs to be scaled back hardcore or I'll continue to view it as the devs spitting in the face of soloers.
Soloers, you can expect your notice in around 2016.
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I'm surprised the face-slapping thing has been used more often - these solo NotW requirements are a perfect chance to deploy the term multiple times in every post |
Originally Posted by Toony
In all honesty, there still isn't a solo method. This is the equivilant to when badgers were slapped in the face with "one infected in RV every two hours. Good luck!"
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Also, I got my first Isolator badge in RV
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Originally Posted by Toony
This needs to be scaled back hardcore or I'll continue to view it as the devs spitting in the face of soloers.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Serious question. Do you think they should just remove the second option? Would some option that's doable solo be better than no option. I'm not trying to set up a false dilemma. I recognize that the devs have set the bar very, very high. Perhaps too high. But assuming they aren't willing to budge, do you truly believe that this is worse than nothing?
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Originally Posted by Toony
So your options are as follows.
1 TF that takes about an hour, two max 400 hours of solo grinding. (which is longer than some people have played their mains over the course of years.) |
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.
Okay, that one infected in RV misinformation has to stop. It spawns once every 45 minutes, not 2 hours. I know because I hunted it. Still bad, but not nearly as bad as two hours.
Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.
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Except I haven't. I said "I would be damn surprised if they didn't stick to 'One Notice a Week'" otherwise, why would they have made it that way in the first place?|
Originally Posted by Atomic_Woman
You've already spoken on the devs' intentions in thsi thread, why shouldn't they?
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That is looking at what they have already done and assuming that they will not suddenly overturn that the very next issue for no discernable reason.
Geko is saying 'Won't and shouldn't'.
Theres quite a large difference there. And it was also on an entirely different tangent to the point you are arguing.
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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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God forbid players be allowed to play the game in some manner other than whatever the flavour of the week is. |
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
It would lead to devaluing the WST and over-rewarding team based players.
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If they put in a restriction making you have to choose recipe or WST, that eliminates over-rewarding. I recognise that the SCR applies, and have made no judgement on the ease of that task.
However, if the Trials can get you unlimited Notices, I consider the matter moot. They would have already devalued the WST and the recipe could not devalue it further.
The WST is here to stay, it's not some fad.
Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.
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I'm not arguing against that. Not one jot.|
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Have you ever wondered why that is? I have. I used to play this SOE game called Everquest Online Adventures. You simply could not solo effectively past level 20 in that game. Most quests at that level and above were too difficult to complete without at least 1-2 other people. I used to be angry about this. But then I started looking into why MMORPG developers promote teaming.
And no matter how hard people try to ignore it, for the majority of people teaming experience, engaging with others to complete tasks, tend to be the experiences that people who play these types of games find the most rewarding. Sure, this doesn't mean everyone thinks this way, but it's enough people that MMORPG designers have almost to the one decided that while soloing is an important playstyle that should be supported, grouping should always be preferred. Read the blogs of MMORPG developers, read the scholarly articles. It's all there. |
However, I've seen a lot of people both here and in-game who play CoX for the exact reason that, in the past, it has offered both standard, Team-based MMO fare and also made it so that soloists can still plod along, doing there thing and having their fun too.
For them to stop doing something they have previously done well, re:Enabling both team and solo players with relative equality, is both a bad thing for players and a bad thing for themselves, because people who might previously have played the game with solo friendly options may be put off by hearing people say "All the new stuff they are making is team-only" or, the more likely one given internet rumour-milling, "Their copying (Other Game) and only putting in end-game raid content now."
That is what I object to.
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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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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.