City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

The endgame grind, perceived or reality?

Adeon Hawkwood

By Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-03-28 16:16 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker View Post
Not strictly true. Existing characters were excluded until I19, and once I19 landed on the doorstep we could go through and explore and exemp down on teams, and in fairness, your last remark is blatantly false.
So, you're saying he cannot experience the new content solo? Seems like he has a point then.

 

Posted

It is a grind, and once the shine wears off, people will be surprised it made it this far.

 

Posted

But this is what we asked for.

Look, there are three possible states, period, for endgame content:

1) Endless new material constantly being created by a staff which would have to be much larger than the playerbase (since it's more work to make content than to speed through it).

2) Little to no endgame content (50-and-you're-done).

3) Repeatable endgame content that will take a while so there's a lot more to do at 50 (i.e., grind).

Option 1 is not possible; simply can't happen. Option 2 is what COH/V originally had, and everyone whined for "a lot more to do when you're 50;" i.e., option 3 -- grind.

Now we have it. It is exactly what we (overall) asked for, without being option 1, which cannot exist.

If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
----------------------------------------------------------

The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog

 

Posted

What makes end game grind different from your trek to the level cap is that the experience can be approached from many ways while the end game grind is becoming more restrictive. It feels almost misleading to introduce a system that is radically different for end game compared to the leveling experience, which I believe will lead to a lot of frustration.

 

Posted

The difference between the endgame grind and other real or percieved grinds is, I think, that it's never been quite so blatant. The devs are releasing these two Trials with reward mechanics that actually encourage running them over and over and over again.

This is a pretty radical change from the game that introduced merit rewards and diminishing returns to address Speed TFs.

So why the change? Simple. They just can't get the content out quick enough.

This, the endgame, was supposed to be part of Going Rogue, before it was pulled. This should have been out eight months ago.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
If running the same content over and over before we had an end game was acceptable, why is it such a bad thing now?
Because there was a lot more of it. Repeating something a few weeks later feels a lot less grindy than repeating it the next day.

Quote:
People ran a select few task forces over and over for the rewards involved and it was okay. But now that there is new content to run over and over, people are suddenly complaining about how grindy it is?
Some people did. That was their choice. Others chose not to.

Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper

Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World

 

Posted

If you want to ride the crest of the wave and be in the group of firsters, yes, it's grindy. I do other stuff, run a few WST here and there. I'll have my ultra by the end of the week. And then what? Wait. And that was taking my sweet time and not bothering with the rush to greatness.

 

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Originally Posted by DanZero View Post
If you want to ride the crest of the wave and be in the group of firsters, yes, it's grindy. I do other stuff, run a few WST here and there. I'll have my ultra by the end of the week. And then what? Wait. And that was taking my sweet time and not bothering with the rush to greatness.
This is largely my approach to it as well.

A lot of the people who are perceiving it as a grind also seem to be perceiving that they can't do anything else while they're doing it.

I plan on running the Incarnate stuff a little bit here and there with my 50s, and when I get tired of doing that, I will play some lower level characters, or run a non-WST TF because I can.

You don't HAVE to achieve everything in the Incarnate system as quickly as possible. If you run the trials over and over again because you're too impatient to wait for your Incarnate slot, of course it's going to feel grindy.

If you do the same thing you've always done, play end game content and intersperse some lower level stuff as well, it will feel a lot less grindy.

Basically, if it's a grind, your approach to it is what is making it one.

Quote:
Originally posted by Eva Destruction
Because there was a lot more of it. Repeating something a few weeks later feels a lot less grindy than repeating it the next day.
So you're upset that the brand new content isn't as diverse as the rest of the game...which has SEVEN YEARS worth of content?

That's kind of silly there. There's no way you can realistically expect the devs to release something all at once that has the same amount of variety as the rest of the game combined. It's just not possible to do. Of course there isn't very much of the brand new stuff, the brand new stuff hasn't had seven years of stuff added to it yet.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
That's kind of silly there. There's no way you can realistically expect the devs to release something all at once that has the same amount of variety as the rest of the game combined. It's just not possible to do. Of course there isn't very much of the brand new stuff, the brand new stuff hasn't had seven years of stuff added to it yet.
I10 didn't take seven years to create. It had way more content than i20. Going Rogue had way more content than i20. Heck, even i19 had more content than i20.

Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper

Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
You don't really think that all this work for the endgame system, Leagues, queues, powers and Incarnate slots is going to finish after four 30 mintue Trials, do you?
You talking about what year?
I care about the actual state of the game, and 2 trials from now till I21 (September?) seems limitated at least.
I know they will add more trials, but Im worried about other stuff is ignored just for the Incarnate system.
I love it, is just... I want new powers, new zones, new costumes...
Not only new trials and Incarnate stuff.
Maybe its time for a new expansion... GR was awesome. It just took too much time.

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
You're comparing a body of content enough to get you to level 50 three times over without ever touching the same mission twice, vs. an endgame where you have to repeat the same two tasks how many times?
I'm going to try and explain my position as best I can, without sliding into "you can't POSSIBLY like the things I don't like!".

Soloing in CoH bores me. Even in the newest, shiniest arc that I've never done before, each mission is a dozen fights that all go pretty much the same. The only variety comes from switching characters, and I pretty much have to do so every three or four missions to stave off boredom.

Introducing more people to the team, whether from my SG or a PuG, makes things less predictable and more interesting. Depending on team composition, and on particular moment-to-moment tactics, every fight with the same enemy group on the same map can go completely differently. Sometimes I'm on a team of Defenders and Controllers who roll over everything. Sometimes there's a Scrapper who goes charging off after groups that we missed. There's never a dull moment.

I haven't played a lot of the Trials on Test, but I would make the following observations:

1) Trials have more people. The more people are in a group, the more unpredictability happens, the more fun I have.

2) Trials have a learning curve. I'm pretty much certain to only fail them for a while at first. Eventually both I and the playerbase at large will grow more competent and I will be on raids that succeed, or that achieve bonus objectives.

3) Anyone who participates in Trials will earn rewards, so as I go along, I will start seeing more people with Judgement attacks, Lore pats and Destiny buffs, in addition to earning them myself.

So, from this I draw a conclusion that every BAF Trial I'm on will be different from others in ways that make it interesting to me. Maybe not "Bonefire Plot vs World Wide Red" different, but at least "Ubelmann the Unknown vs Path of the Dark" different. This is just a provisional conclusion, but that's why I'm cautiously optimistic.



Character index

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
Until now, the only thing we could do with our level 50 characters was run the same content repeatedly. No one seemed to have much of a problem with that, even though it was repetitive and, dare I say, grindy.
Until now, the Devs weren't making such a big deal about "look here's stuff for level 50s to do!"

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction View Post
I10 didn't take seven years to create. It had way more content than i20. Going Rogue had way more content than i20. Heck, even i19 had more content than i20.
The variety of things to do in the game did not all happen in one single issue. That's the point I was making.

This has been (so far) 2 issues worth of content, and you're unhappy that it isn't as diverse as 18 issues of content. Or at least that's how I read it.

Also, i10 didn't introduce an entirely new system to the game. But of course they should be expected to add a new system and just as much content as previous issues.

Amount of content does not necessarily equal the amount of work put into it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

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Originally Posted by Lazarillo View Post
Until now, the Devs weren't making such a big deal about "look here's stuff for level 50s to do!"
A lot of people were asking or them to make a big deal of it by actually making an endgame system

@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

 

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[Dr. Mechano]" ...when it started, yeah there was a set path and only 2 raids (single boss big Dragon raid and multiboss ...<snip>
Nowadays .... There are quite a few raid instances which gives people things to try our differently each week. "

Looks like you answered your own question there, with the example. Give it time. The people who 'have to have it ALL NAO' will invariably quit, or take a break. And some won't like it - because frankly, you can't please all of the people all of the time. But the game will go on.

One other point: as we get more and more content, and things get more and more interrelated, it may become more and more difficult to keep things in "balance" (whatever that means). For example, it may require more consideration as to how rewards are to be handled with new TFs and/or raids coming along, to keep some of the older content from being completely taken out of consideration for teams to run. So there may be "less" content 'per issue' in the future, simply because it is harder to add to a huge, dynamic game world. Just another thing to consider.

Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued

"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque

 

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I think the advancement system being tied to just two new Trials (completely different type of content for this game and playerbase) looks a bit grindy, indeed... whether it is, I am willing to wait and see how it plays out.

Here's the thing that I thought was cool when the Alpha slot was first unveiled and what I thought was going to be a very solid aspect of the End Game advancement system.

Including any and all activities and content at level 50 seemed like a brilliant idea.
Clearly, the Devs cannot create an abundance of new content to equal the previous 7 years... that's nonsense and a bit of a strawman argument.
The new system should include existing content, especially Giant Monsters, already-existing Raids, Zone Events/Invasions, TFs, Story Arcs...

And... It does, to an extent... via shard drops and conversions.
However, the drop and conversion rates for shards (and shards to threads... and the amounts of threads needed) may be much more of a long grind than the repetitiveness of just two Trials.
Again, I'll save judgment for when I actually get my hands on it... But it is easy to understand how it looks rather grindy on paper.

@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

 

Posted

It's grindy.

It may not be "making my Aion sorcerer a grandmaster tailor"-level grindy (I still shudder a bit remembering how much of a boring, repetative time-sink THAT turned out to be- ), but the number of times we're going to have to run those trials to craft bits and fill those four slots is non-trival, especially given the "luck-based" aspects of the system. And it's likely to be even worse for people taking the shard-conversion route...

@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
A lot of people were asking or them to make a big deal of it by actually making an endgame system
Right, so they give us the same little-if-nothing to do, and advertise it as a whole new system. If they'd introduced purple enhancements along with the ITF and called that an "endgame system"...it'd be about the same as we're getting now.

The problem is that this is supposed to be something new to do with our 50s and there's absolutely no meat to it. If we want any sort of reward we can do them again. And again. And again. That, however, doesn't alleviate the problem that led to people demanding and "endgame" in the first place.

Now, I am fully aware of how unreasonable it is to expect the Devs to create new content as fast as people can play the new content. However, I still think it's fair to see a problem when I can have a character completely done with the "content" part of the new Issue in less than two hours, especially when the new powers part of the system is going to take around 30-40.

The "create a massive number of alts" aspect has generally enabled us to avoid the problem of "nothing new to do", because playing different characters allows us to approach old content differently. By maintaining the same low level of new content, while simultaneously discouraging playing a large number of characters, we create this grinding feeling.

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
Question:

If running the same content over and over before we had an end game was acceptable, why is it such a bad thing now?

Until now, the only thing we could do with our level 50 characters was run the same content repeatedly. No one seemed to have much of a problem with that, even though it was repetitive and, dare I say, grindy.

People ran a select few task forces over and over for the rewards involved and it was okay. But now that there is new content to run over and over, people are suddenly complaining about how grindy it is?

I'm sorry, but I don't see what is so different about it. We were doing the same thing over and over before, and nothing has really changed, but NOW you're complaining about it.

It doesn't make any sense to me at all.
I don't, didn't, and will not run the same content over and over again. Not everyone was on the LGTF/ITF loop before Incarnates. There's zero interest for me in running the same tasks ad nauseum. So I haven't. And I'm not going to start because the devs have decided that's the way for me to advance from here.


 

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Originally Posted by Gearsinger View Post
It's too grindy for my taste.

I left another game I cared a great deal about when it added a similar grind. I think in large part it's that I'm doing the same content over and over for a bit of pixellated currency that doesn't actually do anything. There's no inherent value to a thread or a shard. If you gather enough of them, you can build a whatsit, and with enough whatsits you can build a whosit.

If I cared about the story, or found the content inherently fun, I wouldn't mind. However, I find the Tyrant invasion story very bland, and don't like repeating content on the same character.

So when my subscription runs out in mid May, I'll move on.
May I ask, are you having fun now? If so, what will change when they add additional content such that you feel the need to leave?

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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Originally Posted by EvilGeko View Post
May I ask, are you having fun now? If so, what will change when they add additional content such that you feel the need to leave?

Simply? I've run out of story. I've seen the old stuff and the new stuff doesn't interest me. It's certainly not enough to make me want to do it over and over.

I'm not all "DOOM! RAGE! etc.!" I'm just a bit sad that the direction the game is taking means it's time for me to mosey on. This is what some folks like in their games. So I'll go play in a different corner while they have their days in the sun.

If City of survives, I'll wander "home" in a couple issues or years or whatever, and see if there are new things for my style of play.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gearsinger View Post
Simply? I've run out of story. I've seen the old stuff and the new stuff doesn't interest me. It's certainly not enough to make me want to do it over and over.

I'm not all "DOOM! RAGE! etc.!" I'm just a bit sad that the direction the game is taking means it's time for me to mosey on. This is what some folks like in their games. So I'll go play in a different corner while they have their days in the sun.

If City of survives, I'll wander "home" in a couple issues or years or whatever, and see if there are new things for my style of play.
Oh, OK. I can understand just not liking the whole Praetoria thing. I haven't tested the new TFs (I want something to be fresh) but I don't think they're ALL about Praetoria.

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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Quote:
Originally Posted by galadiman View Post
[Dr. Mechano]" ...when it started, yeah there was a set path and only 2 raids (single boss big Dragon raid and multiboss ...<snip>
Nowadays .... There are quite a few raid instances which gives people things to try our differently each week. "

Looks like you answered your own question there, with the example. Give it time. The people who 'have to have it ALL NAO' will invariably quit, or take a break. And some won't like it - because frankly, you can't please all of the people all of the time. But the game will go on.

One other point: as we get more and more content, and things get more and more interrelated, it may become more and more difficult to keep things in "balance" (whatever that means). For example, it may require more consideration as to how rewards are to be handled with new TFs and/or raids coming along, to keep some of the older content from being completely taken out of consideration for teams to run. So there may be "less" content 'per issue' in the future, simply because it is harder to add to a huge, dynamic game world. Just another thing to consider.
Actually that situation was right at the start of Vanilla WoW where they didn't plan to make raiding into anything big.

Now with every expansion pack you'll see atleast 3-4 Raids introduced from the very start and usually an additional raid every three-four months unless its nearing the end of the expansion cycle and the new one is prepping up, in which case focus switches to testing the new expansion.

Now WoW has the luxury that it's raids take a lot longer to complete AND to gear everyone out of it (since WoW is heavily gear based) than CoH's new raids. Where a person could just book time off work and spend 8 hours a day just blitzing them to get their very rare.

CoH doesn't have the 'it'll take the majority ages to get here' luxury, it is designed around being quick, casual friendly and generally not relying on gather 25 people together over vent for four nights a week.

Personally I'm thankful for that but it doesn't really give the dev team any time at all. Most people I know blitz through the uncommon on initial Incarnate release, would make sure to do every single WST every Tuesday, the only reason they slowed people down was because you had to wait each week to earn the Notification.

So they don't have the time luxury and people simply don't want WoW style raids in this game (a few people aside, who I personally think are insane for wanting that kind of 'four nights a week, 4 hours every night, fighting the same bosses over and over again' kind of raid).

So it's catch 22, do they release a limited number of raids that mean people are going to be grinding them to hell and back, wait longer and release all the rest of the Incarnate system in one fell swoop, meaning it'll take quite some time to earn everything up to Omega but people get bored and unsubscribe during the drought of content or do they make it a true WoW style endgame, which most people playing the game don't want which means they'll unsubscribe.