What kind of endgame do you want?

I'm really actually curious.

I think this thread will be more interesting, so to speak, if posts are made supposing that we know nothing of what's already here or of what's already coming, and if our 'wants' are stated in the positive (i.e. "I want..." not "I don't want...")

Please, be specific.
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I'd like any endgame to be fun; whether it's the satisfaction of participating in a well-written plot, the feeling that I actually completed a tough challenge that was worth my time, and/or taking the opportunity to advance my character(s) in a way that I feel was significant, 'fun' for me means that I feel like I get something positive out of the experience, no matter how many times I have to do it.

I'm not terribly picky.

[ to troll or not to troll ... hmmm, don't take this too seriously ]

A pink one.

Although I call shenanigans, "fun" is horribly inspecific and subjective .

I'd like some reason to log in and continue to play my level capped characters. Some more advancement. IOs work to an extent, although that's just a money grind [and not a particularly hard one unless I decide to Purple out a build].

Replaying the leveling grind never really felt satisfying to me as an endgame. I do like WoW's mix of random loot progression and fixed grind progression. It gives variety to the encounters. Still frustrating at times, but at least generally feels like you're making progress to something [until ya got the Big Bad on farm status and really just hoping for the RNG to be nice]. I'm not sure how I feel about the Trial reward methods. I do know they have a Public Quest reward method, which is similar and does try to break up the monotony, but I'll wait till it's live to judge if that works for me .

Story is important with any content, would like to think goes without saying.

So far, I'm getting what I want

I've never actively participated in the end game of any MMO I've played. So, I can truthfully say that I don't need one.

Thinking back to posts I made a year or more ago when we had no idea of what was coming...

I wanted new zones, with new story arcs and new enemies to fight. Send us to the Rikti Homeworld, the heart of Oranbega, a revamped Shadow Shard, the long discussed Moon Base. Send us to Egypt to explore the secrets of the Black Blood of the Earth, or into the Devouring Earth ravaged wilderness of Praetorian Earth. or the resurgent Reich of the 5th Column.

And balance it around IOs, not SOs. You want grind - then get purpled out. If the zone is based on existing enemy groups then give them new 50+ enemy types to match. Take all the clever, evil mechanics that have been lavished on the Praetorian mobs and ramp that up to 11, so that the uber 50s who run regular content at +4/x8 might actually have a fight on their hands now and again.

And make our power increases subtle and mostly defined by behind the scenes mechanics. I've got two 50s - an ex-New Orleans narcotics detective and her thug henchmen, and an english aristocrat who fights crime because of vague government connections and because it's fun. Neither of them want to be demi-gods. Neither of them would be the same characters if they were demi-gods.

That's what I wanted for 50+ content.

I already posted most of this elsewhere but I'll repeat it here:

I would like to see a mix of large raids, smaller TFs, and soloable/small team story arcs, all more challenging than regular content and designed with Incarnate powers in mind. I would like to see the story come first and flashy gimmicks come second, and only if they could support the story. If they really want to do a gimmick but don't have a good story for it to support, make like the sewer trial and keep it basic. "Bad guy do bad stuff. Stop him." and "Guy have cool stuff. Take it." is better than some convoluted nonsense full of plot holes and character derailment.

I would like mechanical progression to remain separate from story progression except in the vaguest possible sense. I would like a variety of credible threats to fight. Preferably each issue would hint at the next big threat. I would like an end to evil goatee universes and multiverse-hijacking insane sources of power that force our characters to become total idiots, build up a big threat, then reward us for stopping the thing they started to begin with. I would like to track down the person who came up with the idea of the Lore pets, sit them down, and ask them what the **** they were thinking.

As for what powers and upgrades I want, I'd want powers and upgrades that allow us to make our characters more unique, not give us all the same thing. The Alpha slot was great in that sense. So is Interface, or at least it would be if one choice wasn't so obviously superior for so many people. A giant nuke and a giant team buff though? Not so much. And pets? Just no. I am not impressed by the flashy. I do not enjoy losing the actual character interaction in a sea of flashy. Some of my characters are not flashy, and I don't need or want them to be flashy. Even with the ones that are, the flashy is secondary to the character. If I'm playing my Fire Blaster, I want to see my Fire Blaster, not a bunch of fire flying around with maybe a Blaster somewhere in that mess. When you add 20 other characters throwing flashy crap around....now I'm looking at a lightshow and not a game.

My end-game is PvP. I would like to see PvP get built upon. Alternate ways to get rewards through PvPing and not doing TF's.

What kind of endgame do I want?
umm...... content? Really, anything is fine. I was never concerned about the lack of endgame content. I play at all levels all the time. My main character is built for exemping and has exemped as low as level 1.

So, from where I'm sitting: "We're getting new stuff? Cool."

I'm not really opposed to the mechanics of the Incarnate system -- not jazzed by it, but not hating it, either -- because a lot of it feels like Skill Trees in other games, which, okay, boring, been there-done that, but doable tied to a "TF Plus" system that is essentially a mini-raid. I don't really care for Hami or Momship raids, but the League thing will probably make it easier to do. So, okay fine.

I really don't like this Incarnate business from a story and character perspective. No matter how much some people try to rationalize it, what's happening is a big fat magic thing is imbuing our characters with magical mojo. That's fine for some of my characters but not all of them. I don't know why the emphasis on Incarnates all of a sudden. Old NPCs getting revamped into Incarnatedom, players becoming Incs as well. It's just like the CoV story: we're all minions of Recluse on some sort of evil visionquest. Well, I don't want to be. Stop shoehorning my original, unique character into this generic story.

And for God's sake, enough with the Praetorians. Doppelgangers are cool once, but three times? Stop already.

I suppose that I would want to go to places that differ radically from any place we've been so far. Atlantis. On the moon. In an asteroid belt. An orbital space station. Inside a volcano. Deep under the earth's crust, in a chasm full of lava and ash vents. In a jungle filled with velociraptors and other dinosaurs. In ancient Egypt. At one of the earth's poles, fighting on a glacier as it splits and breaks off from the mainland and drifts into the sea due to a nefarious plot to increase global warming. The Rikti home world. Mars.

All of these could be fascinating and exciting places we could go that would not be the same old thing, done ad nauseum and would vastly expand our sense of the size of the universe in which this game takes place.

Storyline wise I'd most like to see some end game content that features actual exploration of the Rikti homeworld (though everything TyrantMikey just said would be awesome). Game mechanic wise I'm fairly happy with their current approach: The Incarnate system works reasonably well in performance, advances at whatever speed I feel like investing in it at a predictable pace (as opposed to say doing the same raid 50x hoping for one particular rare helmet to drop), and frankly I don't feel I have to connect it to my characters backstory any more then I have to explain why a dozen of my characters had the same final climactic battle with Frostfire (some more then once).

I'd love if they experimented with totally different playstyles. I for instance could see an occasional mission with an RTS style battle where you remotely direct large units of supers against incoming armies (a situation some might have found themselves doing during the climactic battles of Rikti Invasions or similar events). But I don't think a lot of others would be into that.

Frankly though I'd be just as happy if they invested more of the time assigned to endgame development replacing cookie-cutter warehouses and office buildings with more unique or at least redecorated maps. Truthfully if I was really picky I'd probably have wandered off years ago, so whatever happens I'm probably good as long as something keeps happening.

I want to chase off mothra with a fly-swatter.

Warning: Unrealistic Idealism to follow!

Ideally? I'd -love- an end-game system that not only encourages me to play my 50s for a while; but -also- opens up opportunities for new characters. Perhaps something along the lines of reaching the ultimate in Incarnate with a particular set (or set combination) opening up some sort of... modification for new characters. Maybe a passive buff; or a full-on power. An inherent, even? Who knows? Costume pieces - archetypes - powersets - things like that might also be good (and something more than just unlocking Epics at 20!); but they'd need to be awfully impressive to warrant going through a whole end-game system to get! That's just a thought, though, and not anything specific I'd like. This is the part where I loop back to what I said originally about encouraging 50 play, in addition to providing new opportunities for the altoholic in me. ANd let's face it - altism is what CoX is good at!

I want my end game to be optional.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I want my endgame to be fun.

I'd like an endgame with an actual ending. One last big mission/TF (solo or team) with a permanent retirement from play for that character and a send-off cutscene dependant on victory or defeat.

I want big one on one fights, against AVs, no lowering them to EB status! Ones you have to build an IO build to accomplish and then you can feel like you went one on one with a real threat supervillain (or hero).

One I can solo...that's all.

Lisa.

Well, for something like the Incarnate system, I wanna fight the old world heroes and villains!
Let Odin descend from Asgard to seek warriors to help battle Ragnarok! Let me team up with Gilgamesh and Enkidu to fight Humbaba! I want to join forces with Susanoo and Amaterasu to placate Izanami and thwart Amatsu Mika-Boshi! To team with Nuada of the Tuatha Dannan to slay Balor once more! We should be exploring the lost City of Eldorado, learning from monks in Shangri La, plundering the lost Treasures of the Templar!

Of course, classical literature would also be great too. Captain Nemo strikeforce anyone?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.