I know I'll get flamed for this suggestion...

...but I'll post it anyhow.

I'd love to see the gameplay revamped throughout the low-level zones. Specifically, I'd like to see gang-specific tip missions replace the current contact system. Instead of immediately getting a contact that starts sending us on errands, why not drop gang-specific tips when beating on members of that gang, and then when enough tip missions have been run unlocking a TF/SF contact?

As an example of what I mean, I'd like to see Hellion-specific tips drop when defeating Hellions in the streets. Maybe one of them gasps out something, or lets it slip while boasting. After you complete a few Hellion tip missions, you unlock part of the story arc we have now for the Hellions/magic origin arc. Perhaps Paco Sanchez contacts you because you have a growing reputation as the go-to person for dealing with the Hellions.

After you unlock the contact, the series of missions is a normal TF/SF, just like the ones we have now, but with a minimum team size of 1.

So, to recap: instead of being the errand person for the whole city, I'd like to see my heroes and villains have a growing reputation that's reflected in the number of TFS or SFs they have unlocked. I think that we already have almost all the pieces necessary to implement this. Gang-specific tip missions could be reworked radio missions, the TFs would simply be the arcs we already have now, the contacts are already in place. It would massively increase the number of different TFs in the game, giving the whole player base more variety.

Any thoughts or comments?

Why would you automatically assume this would get flamed?

Either you are overly sensitive about any type of criticism or you are trying to trick people browsing the titles of the threads into reading your idea by implying that you are making a controversial suggestion which this isn't.

In the future I'd suggest just making your suggestion and let it stand or fall on it's own merits rather than drum up drama with inflammatory titles.


As to the idea itself. I don't see it replacing the contact system but it would be a great addition to the game as it would compliment the contact sytem nicely.

/signed.

Ohohohoho!



Actually, if tip missions did extend down that far, you'd have three options.

Arcs
Radios
Tips

Also, by running tips and swapping alignments earlier, it would render the hero/villain dichotomy even more stateless.

As a player, such a change might be welcome. For the devs though, there could be whole barrels of worms opened up by this though.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

my gut thought:

not against it... but not for it either.

The developers just went through a multi-year process of building a completely new experience for low level play in Praetoria. The developers have been very explicit about some of their design goals relating from that new player experience.

On of those design goals is to "spread out" the amount of information a player has to learn over the levels. The developers have explicitly stated that they do not WANT tip missions to occur below level 20 since this adds yet another layer of congestion to the information that needs to be imparted to the player.

For that same reason Praetoria does not have Task Forces. The original Positron Task force is regarded as a brutal experience, and rather than showcasing the Task Force experience for players, earned a reputation for discouraging players from running Task Forces.

Now, I realize that the way you phrased your opening post, you intended this to be for pre-Going Rogue Hero / Villain low-level content.

I think what you want is just too confusing for low-level players. The contact system works because it gives players a firm guideline for where they should go and what they should do. Giving players open-sand-boxes to go and just "do stuff that unlocks stuff"... well. That really doesn't work for MMO's.

Then there's the over-shadowing issue that revamping content can take significant development resources... and the developers behind War Witch (Melissa) and Positron (Matt Miller) have indicated that they prefer to create NEW content than revamp old content.

Now, as I said, I'm not against your idea.

I think it might work for high-level content, when the player is already assumed to have a working grasp of the game mechanics, and giving players sandboxes to "go do stuff that unlocks stuff" is more likely to not result in subscribers finding games that don't play like Suikoden.

Removing the old contacts is a terrible idea because it is completely unnecessary. They work just fine, and are in fact far superior to City of Villain's busywork of forcing you to do boring, irrelevant paper missions and the same damn Mayhem mission I've done hundreds of times, just so I can get a contact that has a story to him.

I wouldn't be specifically opposed to the constructive part of the suggestion, mind you, but I like the existing contacts and don't look too kindly on suggestions to remove them for no gain.

Quote:

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.

While I would like to see a revamp of the low level content in Paragon City... I don't think this is the way to go.

What I want to see is some actual effort put into story arcs. Right now, barring heading to the Hollows, fledgling heroes are stuck with contacts that just dole out throw away missions until they are past level 10 - and some (Mutant or Magic contacts) need to wait until around level 15 to even have a chance at one.

That is a very long wait for what is a basic game feature. CoV might have an amazing lack of available options, but at least they start characters off with actual story arcs from the get-go.

Replacing the existing content probably isn't going to happen. But making a couple of new contacts in the 1-10 and 10-20 ranges that run actual stories, rather than just make work, would be a nice addition.

(Maybe, as a really radical suggestion, they could make one of these 1-10 contacts be in Galaxy City, rather than Atlas Park...)

The idea is ok. I think a major opportunity was lost by not integrating tip missions into the papers and radios system. That's really where they would have fit well but they stand now as a separate system. I think your idea really pulls a couple of systems together well and gives the whole game a little more contiguity. However, like others have stated the lower levels need to be a simple experience that leads gently into the deep end for new players. We don't want players to look at COH the same way they do EVE.

If you think that the gradual ramp up of information isn't important try to explain the incarnate system to someone who hasn't played before. You're guranteed to have to explain at least two other systems (crafting and enhancements) to ensure that they have even a basic understanding of how to do it.

Ambivalent on this for many of the reasons already mentioned.

However...
What I would like to see at beginning levels is more story about why we will be acting the way we do, as Heroes (Villains don't need as much rationalizing) as well as why we are ALLOWED to act as we do. I've always felt that as soon as we hit Atlas Park or Galaxy City we go about hacking/burning/shooting/freezing people (unto unconsciousness) without much reasoning behind it. Granted, enemies near your level will attack you if you enter their aggro range but we always see them first and usually SHOOT first, even if they are just "walking along the shore of the lake" (not doing anything illegal-seeming).

I KNOW that its a game and we have to suspend disbelief sometimes, but I'd like more information about being a hero at low levels.

Oh, I originally meant gang-specific tips to be separate from normal tips... perhaps call them 'leads' instead. The difference is that they all lead towards a story arc, not a morality mission. A similar UI could be used for it, with 3-5 leads from the same gang opening a contact.

As for the title, past experience has been that the flaming happens fast. I didn't even want to check this thread today...


I do think that this would be a more intuitive way for low-end play to progress. Altering the tutorial a bit to promote saving people instead of talking to contacts would help, something like the Ouroborous flashback of the tutorial perhaps? Saving a purse from a purse-snatcher and then having the victim tell you about what she heard seems pretty logical.

Even the bank missions could be reworked to fit this. Get a lead where a signature villain's name pops up, then investigate that to get more information, then to find the contact that the villain is meeting, and then the bank mission where you get there just in the nick of time. It would have a more active feel to it than the current police detective method. For red-side, the progression would be something like get a lead on a gang planning a robbery, then arrange to meet them, take down the person that thought they were in charge, and then go on a mayhem.

I could see getting a one shot mission similar to a tip mission but complete story arcs would never work with that kind of system.

The Perez Park Security Chief mission is given out at level 7 and consists of defeating Circle of Thorns. The problem is that most CoT spawns are large, include bosses and spawn from level 8 onwards. A contact in Kings' Row won't give you missions when you're level 12, you'll be referred to a Steel Canyon or Skyway City contact.

Nit-picks aside, I still disagree with you. You don't like the low-level Launch missions, but your cited objections are Security Chief missions. There is a simple solution to this that does not necessitate a re-write of the contact system. Simply removing the Security Chief missions or otherwise adding Security Chiefs as their own contacts would solve this. It does not necessitate destroying the contact system and replacing it with a frankly horrible, impersonal system of random "proactive" tips.

More specifically, I LIKE the old Launch missions, and would be very sad to see them go. Yes, the contacts are faceless. So what? I never really cared for the obtrusive personalities of the CoV contacts to begin with. I'm interested in stories about my character and about the enemy groups, not about my contacts. CoV is replete with horrible, terrible "mercenary" jobs that achieve nothing narratively but you getting "paid," which you do in words only. I'd much rather take The Clockwork Captive or the Vahzilok Plague over Shelley Percey's meaningless busywork or the Golden Roller's irrelevancy. To quote Yahtzee: "The characters have achieved nothing, learned nothing, and will now hopefully jump into a black hole and return to nothing."

Praetoria is not a BAD idea, but it's SO HEAVILY stuffed with new fancy mechanics and walls of text that I end up spending the bulk of my time not playing the game, but instead sitting on my hands staring at static text. This is not what I want for the low-level hero side. City of Heroes requires a balance between story text and and basic fighting. While the old Launch arcs may have too much fighting and too little text, this does not mean that I want the game to go to the other extreme. A happy medium is required, and Praetoria ain't it.

Quote:

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.

Oh yes indeed, the style of story advancement through something similar to the Tip Mission system would be fantastic.

Some story arcs even work like this... when you complete one mission and it immediately leads to the next one.
Those tend to feel the most dynamic.
So long as they don't automatically start a time sensitive/timed mission, I love that manner of progression and would welcome more stuff for all levels along the lines of how Tip Missions are handled.

That system is the closest thing we have to dynamic mission/story content, as opposed to the messenger/servant boy system of most mmorpgs.

I'm not saying that development should be spent on redoing everything (or anything), but adding more options along the lines of the Tip system (and adding them in for low level) would be great.
I think it'd be great to introduce that more natural/dynamic system of story progression/action development as early as possible.

I'd just like it if a lot of the lower level contacts had an actual arc, not randomly strung together missions that have no overlaying plot, and that weren't all defeat all, hunts or...oh, yeah, defeat all.

I get the fact that throwing in too many bells and whistles can be an annoyance too. But Defeat All after Defeat All seems to be about 95% of the old content. And it's badly written, too. Very badly written. To the point that, yes, I will avoid it because it's that bad.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.