The type of mission that CoH lacks.

Bus tokens.


Coming Issue 22.

Issue 21 will be tram fare. Only obtainable by clicking pixel sized glowies on the street. No tram fare, no ride.

This is what I was imagining when I mentioned a 'skill-set/tree'. Basically, you have missions that you do to earn xp and stuff, then you have missions that earn you points to skill up extra abilities. My thought would be, if you skilled up 'Hacker' and there were certain missions where you're accessing a computer, the Hacker would have additional options available that might do a variety of things (won't try going into what though) as well as faster downloads from computer/tech glowies.

I guess one hurdle it would bring the devs is actually going in and adding such extra options to a lot more glowies...

Lol, you always have such high stipulations to your agreements, Sam. I mean, what harm would it be to have a 'Lift up/Carry' skill that requires a couple points you might have to gain through some missions when all it'd do is give you the extra option of having "You heroically carry the victim to safety, all the while being thanked for your constant sacrifices," or "You contact a squad of medics and assure the victim will be taken care of," if you can't lift them? I mean, if it's non-combat and has no actual impact on xp, mission completion or rewards and simply offering flavor text or even just a badge saying you rescue people by hand, is it really something you can complain about?

That said, if there were actual missions that require you to carry a civilian to safety to succeed, I'd expect it to be the very mission that's used to improve said carrying/lifting skill.

I know I've suggested this sort of thing long ago having been inspired by the constant intimidations and purse-snatchings one learns to bypass on the street. Why not save a civilian on the street and have a mission drop: "They said they needed money to buy drugs from somebody named 'RandomNameHere'." Contact is any policeman already in your contact list: "'RandomNameHere'? Yeah, I know who he is. He can be found at the warehouse at random-door-location-here." Which leads to an complete story arc...

You know those ambushes you get from walking by Skull girlfriends pretending to be victims? Why could you not have a shopkeeper spontaneously offer you a mission to stop the punks threatening to burn down his store? Why can't we save the occasional person threatening to jump off a roof or an overpass? Why does a fire have to be limited to SC? Why can't it be a random zone? For that matter why does it have to be an apartment building when it could be a skyscraper, a warehouse, a store, a chemical plant... Why can't we get a mission where we have to craft a cure for some super-power related blight that's killing trees in Perez Park (which we may or may not be able to do with normal salvage drops [and maybe we need to talk to someone at a university to get more information about what kind of salvage would work best])? How about a LONG TERM mission to find and arrest escapees from the Zig? Occasionally you just see someone in an orange jumper walking down the street or hiding among some crates behind a building - chase him, fight him, follow him to his hideout. Catch 50 escapees and you get a badge and your characters name on a billboard for a week. How about a monthly contest or just a random drawing to have one of your heroes offered a role in a movie so we can replace that Fractured Dawn flick that's been playing exclusively for the last SEVEN years? How about a contact who occasionally calls US (with a little, unobtrusive red light next to the Nav compass that indicates message waiting - bring up your contact list and there's your mission should you choose to accept it)?

So maybe there's some insoluable technical reason for not being able to do something like the above. So what CAN be done along those lines? Give me a couple hours and I can give you PAGES of suggestions like the above. If the people who knew best what the game engine could actually do along those lines with minimal effort put their heads together I would be flabbergasted if they couldn't throw together at least a small percentage of such ideas. The volume of types of missions that CoX lacks is actually quite staggering and the increasing methodologies being used to deliver those missions so underused to their best potential it's sad.

But that would mean the trainers and TF contacts would have to DO something instead of just stand and watch you battle the invading rikti/zombie hordes/Kronos Titan.... That might make them interesting, can we really allow that?

The reason I say this is that I have a very low tolerance for system complexity, especially when it comes to things I need to remember. I don't see anything wrong with adding such systems (developer time arguments aside, as those are not interesting), but I simply feel that this is better served using existing tools, rather than inventing brand new ones.

Let me explain what I mean: Once upon a time, all we had was Inf. Now we have Reward Merits, Tickets, Vanguard Merits, Alignment Merits, Shards and probably something else I'm forgetting. Before we used to have just missions, and we added Paper/Scanner to this. Now Tip missions are completely separate from that.

I am a firm believer that a system should never have more tools than is strictly necessary, and instead attempt to add more variety with the use of those tools. This makes it easy to learn, but hard to master. On the contrary, a system that is very complex is usually hard to learn, but once you do learn it, there's nothing to master about it. It's just homework. The one thing I don't want to have to do in my games more than almost all others is have to pause the game and Alt-Tab to the Internet to find more information. And I'm not talking about finding guides or cheat sheets, I'm talking about something as simple as "Who among those contacts is in my current level range?" Sure, level range notes on the contacts screen would help with that, but it's besides the point - I want a simpler system.

Temporary powers provide such a simple system, because I don't have to remember what I brought, and I don't have to look up what mission gives me more "People Carrying Skill" on ParagonWiki every time. And I do forget, occasionally, much to my everlasting shame.

If such a system of "other other skills" must exist, then it would have to be put together in such a way as to be easy to deal with. All such skills displayed in the same place, with the ability to look up missions to improve said skills from the same window which houses them, and notifications when these missions become available. DO NOT make me have to remember who gave what out when and what I had to do to get which point in what skill, nor what skill was used for what task under which circumstances.

Unnecessary complexity can and has ruined games for me.

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.

I'd say the existing tools that have now been developed are indeed under-utilized. They don't seem to be given consideration for additional applications beyond their immediate/initial purpose.

The closer the game can get to a wider spectrum of superhero-comic book tasks and routines the better it will be.

I wonder if we really shouldn't just be given a COH2 where they can (hopefully) apply some of the lessons they've learned over the last 7 years and eliminate some of the "system made up of a random assortment of added systems" feel that you seem to be talking about.

I think it is in the nature of MMO's that the longer they live the more complex they become. Try - just TRY - to be a newbie trying out CoX for the first time. No "manual" you get with the game will be able to explain or list the 7 years of added features and altered functions. The in-game help system sure doesn't do it. You HAVE to go to the internet to have anything like proper informational tools to learn what the vast majority of players now take for granted.

I'll make a confession - I've been playing this game since very shortly after release with a few months off here and there. I loved it from the start and still do despite occasional inadvertant efforts on the part of the game to drive me away for a while. Yet, my highest level character is currently 45 and that's the highest I've EVER gotten a character. It was at least a year until I figured out how to get anyone of my characters to Cimerora (not that I've really done anything there even after I found I could get to it). The only reason I have toons with time-travel is by having been on teams doing time-travel missions. I don't know how to get any OTHER characters time travel ability. I don't know what a shard is and don't even know if I should care. You say "Hamidon" and my eyes glaze over.

Clearly I'm quite a casual player (and it doesn't help that I'm altaholic) but it's obvious to anyone who is a step back from the deepest part of the game how complex it is and how insulated so much of the content is (and even common game mechanics) without some other player on hand or alt-tabbing to the internet to teach you. If I weren't already IN it, I would FAR more easily be put off for good by a lot of things about the game as it currently exists.

Lego Steampunk Cat ftw! XD

I agree that the game gets more complex... and that many of the things in CoH even contradict understanding ( an endurance reduction of 100% really results in something like 50% savings because it only applies the reduction to the modifiable part of endurance.... so why not just show what the actual overall reduction is? Soft caps: Don't give me a way to ridiculously overslot defense without giving me an in-game method of showing me, please...)

I just found one of your examples a bit odd- Cimerora. Granted, people might ignore the new contact that's given to you when you level- there's plenty of other content to explore, but if you take the Midnighter contacts, it seems pretty straightforward- ending with waypoints the whole way to the foot of a contact in the zone.

Ouroboros, on the other hand, is rather strangely gated for people. The game has a good deal of opportunities to stumble across the badges that grant you the portal, but there are so many leveling paths available that many people can pass them by. I had a level 50 that never earned that temp power...

Similarly, getting salvage drops before crafting is explained to you (or even before you can easily make the trek to the first University to take the lesson) seemed a bit too much for new users. Once you get to the tutorial, it's all spelled out (if a bit complex- a totally new player will be introduced to TOs DOs SOs generic IO's and IO sets all within his first 15 hours of play. It could probably have been spread out a bit better....

Shards... no worries. If you ever get to 50, its all spelled out in detail by the first contact. I wouldn't worry about it too much. I kinda felt obligated to get characters to 50 to prepare for the new content, but I find the lower-level gameplay much more enjoyable.