have an option to run tf/sf with fewer than minimum team size

Mmm...

Thinking a bit onthe wild side...

In a game also produced by Cryptic, Guild Wars, they did address this situation by letting you hire mercenaries. This way not only you could complete your group numbr wise, you could also provide for the variety of expertise that you would be lacking otherwise.

So in the same tone as Guild Wars does this, why not have the basic set of ATs represented: Generic Tankers, Gneric Blasters, Generic Controllers, Generic Buff Defenders, Generic Healing Defenders, etc.

So if the TF requires you to have 8 folks, and you lacking a Rad for the TF, then instead of asking players to switch alts or wait for another hour for a Rad to volunteer, just pick-up the mercenary that fits your group needs.

If you are alone, then hire 7 mercenaries and go have a ball!

Now I could see the need to develop a MM like control GUI for the mercenaries for the leader to control, it would be best if the leader could share the mercenary control among otehr players for ease of play and efficiency. For example 4 players hire 4 mercenaries, the leader could then set it where each player is responsibble for a mercenary as well as their own alt.

Any thoughts?

Stormy

UNSIGNED

Seriously.

This is a Multi-Player Game. It is a Massive Multi-player ONLINE Game

Somethings are going to have requirements to have... you know... Multiple Players.

Not everything has to be soloed.

Not everything has to be duoed.

Sometimes, it's okay to have limitations to make starting some events more difficult.

Sometimes, yes, it's going to be hard to get things going because of the server pop.

That being said, this game does not need to be turned into solo-city where everything can be done without ever interacting with another player or getting outside your own personal comfort field and actually... you know...interacting with other players beyond saying hi at the auction house.

This game does not need to account for every single instance where a player wants to do something and there is nobody else on their server.

If nobody's on your server when you play, go to a different server. If you don't want to transfer, you can always make a new character.

Okay, in all fairness, EU players do get a bit of leeway here since they only have two servers and a really low server pop... But I'm not NCSoft Europe and I don't know what clue-by-four it's going to take for them to do something positive in relation to the game.

Here's the dirty secret behind forced teaming and a lot of other time-sink activities in the game:

Instanced maps

Every instanced map the server generates, along with the spawns that go on it and all the activities happening in it, eats server resources. Accordingly, it is far more efficient a use of resources if the game maximizes the number of players per instance and spreads out the number of instances generated simultaneously.

This is why the devs want us to team, the larger the better. This is why the game originally had things like delayed travel powers, return-to-contact, fedex missions, defeat X missions and so forth, to keep players in the public zones. It probably also had a hand in encouraging the devs to develop zone-based events as new content.

Of course, over the years, Moore's Law has worked its magic and the game's population per server has decreased. The devs are no longer bound by the considerations of 2004. Accordingly, we've seen changes over time like newspaper/radio missions, earlier contact call buttons and the like.

However, I'm willing to bet that the game still hasn't reached the level where the devs would consider it a good idea to have thousands of players running solo-spawned TF maps all over the place. If one 8-man ITF causes server lag, imagine what eight ITFs solo-spawned at x8 would do.

I feel fairly certain that the devs track this utilization curve and when it becomes economical to do so, low-entry TFs will become a QoL improvement.

On one hand, I can see where you're coming from. Say your build is awesome, you can solo just about anything with ease, tf's most definitely included. And there is nobody responding to your broadcasts in the badge/tf channels, and thus you are forced to either run normal content, change servers and try again, or log off for a couple hours. It can be disappointing. I've done that in the past, and without doubt (being on a low population server and all), it will happen in the future.

However, on the other hand, say everyone everywhere no longer needs to bother looking for members--save for those that can't solo, or an arbitrary "I'm about to start this thing, this is your first and last chance to join me" statement over the channel. All those on characters that want a tf but can't solo are suddenly out of luck, and those that just invite 2-3 people to run the tf instead of a minimum of 6/8? They would have missed out on that if they were just a couple minutes late because the guy stopped looking.

There is some merit to the reduced reward angle, though. Maybe take out the badge reward too? I could get behind that.

If somebody is able to solo a TF, including AV(s) and normal spawn sizes, I don't see a reason to take out the badge or lower the merit reward.

So change the warning labels.

Hey, this TF should be done with 8 people. You can start it with 4 but it will probably be a pain in the backside and you have a higher chance of failure.

Please stop protecting us from our own stupidity. If we want to run a duo and fail, let us.

Totally disagree. If you have trouble, why not suggest an improvement to the functionality of /search as my latest suggestion thread is about?

/signed!


^

Stormy,

What game are you playing? Seriously, it not this one since it is ridiculously easy. You o obviously think things like tanks/brutes are needed or that you have to have a healer, etc. I truly feel sorry for you with your limited scope of the game. There is so much in it and you are missing it.

And what is the point of your diatribes here? You are not making any as far as I can tell.

/signed. I've asked for this before, and signed it every time it comes up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect If you do it with just one person, it is no longer a Task Force and becomes a story arc.

Then change the name, because the only difference between a story arc and almost all of the TFs is what they're called. There are plenty of story arcs that are far bigger in scope than most of the TFs... especially the old blueside TFs. The Fall of the Fifth Column from Mender Lazarus being one that immediatly comes to mind, though there's plenty of others.

Quote:

If they ever allow us to run them solo, without padders, I would fully expect them to apply the story arc time/reward ratio to it.

Suits me, but I'd also want EBs instead of AVs, since AVs are artificially over powered because they're 'team content.' Whilst not invulnerable to single players they do tend to require rather specialised (and expensive) builds.

My biggest problem with TFs/SFs - aside from how hard it is to get a team together for one if you're playing mostly off peak and on smaller pop servers, is that the way they work the story gets told really badly - unless you have the star. I couldn't care less if they gave 0 merits, I just want to be able to play through them, at least once, in my own time and at my own pace.

Especially those which are the culmination of an entire zone's worth of story arcs - Caverns of Transcendance in the Hollows being by far the worst offender, though Katie, the ITF and, I think, Hess, all fall under that category as well.

The "It's a massively MULTIPLAYER" crowd have the new Raids to keep them happy. Opening up the regular TFs and SFs would go a very long way to balance that out with the soloing crowd.