The endgame grind, perceived or reality?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-03-28 16:16 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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And how many variations of the dialog would you need to satisfy you?|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This, to me, is where the Incarnate system and TFs in general falter. Regular missions get to pretend they're not repetitive simply because there are so many of them. TFs do not have that luxury. If the game made at least a token effort to make the different cycles of the same event different in words, at least, I would appreciate it much more.
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Task Forces in general are presented each time as though this is the first time this event has ever happened, because they HAVE to present them that way.
They can't make each and every task force a one time event because A) It would be an insane amount f work to have a new task force ready every time someone finished the previous one, and B) If a TF is a one time event, no one else in the game will ever get to experience it.
It's not so much suspension of disbelief as it is practicality. You can't make a game that has this many people playing it a completely unique experience for each and every person, it's just not possible. It is the nature of an MMO, you have to keep it somewhat static so people that play at different times and different days all get to experience it equally.
You know you'd be pissed if you didn't get to do something because someone else already did, and now that thing is closed to you.
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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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That sounds like it was a speed run - they can be pretty hectic - what you need to try is a normal paced TF.|
Originally Posted by Fritzy
Hmmm.. it was the WTF Sister Psyche a few weeks ago. I hadn't even made it to the AV room when the reward screen came up. When I say I play slow, I mean........sssslooooowwww.
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What server are you on? And do your global friends also like to play at a slower pace?
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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That's not what he's saying at all. What other people have done doesn't matter. What matters is what you have done. If you've done the LGTF, I don't know that. As far as my characters are concerned, the LGTF has never been done. Every character's game experience is that character's own story, and in this character's story, the events of the LGTF haven't happened until I do the TF. But if I have already done it, I can't do it again and still have the story make sense.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
It's not so much suspension of disbelief as it is practicality. You can't make a game that has this many people playing it a completely unique experience for each and every person, it's just not possible. It is the nature of an MMO, you have to keep it somewhat static so people that play at different times and different days all get to experience it equally.
You know you'd be pissed if you didn't get to do something because someone else already did, and now that thing is closed to you. |
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But that applies to all the TFs and story arcs - it's not really practical to have enough content so that players never have to replay any of it |
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
That's not what he's saying at all. What other people have done doesn't matter. What matters is what you have done. If you've done the LGTF, I don't know that. As far as my characters are concerned, the LGTF has never been done. Every character's game experience is that character's own story, and in this character's story, the events of the LGTF haven't happened until I do the TF. But if I have already done it, I can't do it again and still have the story make sense.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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My opinion is that yes, it's a grind.|
Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
Now looking at the situation of the endgame.
It is begining to look like it's slipping into the age old method of the gear grinding mechanic that is familiar to just above every other MMO out there besides Eve online (which has a 'skills waiting' mechanic instead). ... It looks like grind, the worst kind of grind but am I just percieving it that way. |
The Incarnate boosts themselves strike me as being really, really cool and worth pursuing. I think they will add a lot to my characters and will certainly be doing what I need to do in order to use them. They seem worth the effort.
The Incarnate trials also seem entertaining enough to be worth my time. I'm intrigued by the league concept and turnstile system, and with luck, I will be able to participate in them on demand. I'm in favor of anything that makes it easier to participate in large-team content like this. The trials themselves also seem pretty cool, and I'm glad that content like this is making its way into the game.
That said, I'm kind of disappointed that this issue's new Incarnate Currencies are all centered on the trials. There are only two of them, after all. The fact that there will eventually be more in several months isn't really a comfort to me. Besides, given what we know about how they intend to combat shard hoarding, new trials will likely drop some other flavor of Incarnate Spooge that we'll need for the new slots instead of Threads. I get why they're doing it - they want to force people to play the new content, and they want to ensure that there are always enough interested players to form a league. I still don't like this. I enjoy having options. I had them with Alpha, and I don't with the new slots.
For the immediate future, we have just two trials to work with, and the way the currencies are set up means that players interested in the Incarnate System will have to grind them at length. Even though the trials themselves are cool, I feel that this is a step back. But I will still be participating, and probably would even if I had other decent options to obtain threads besides just the trials.
The Ballad of Iron Percy
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No, I know EXACTLY what he was saying, which is what I was addressing. |
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
That's not what he's saying at all. What other people have done doesn't matter. What matters is what you have done. If you've done the LGTF, I don't know that. As far as my characters are concerned, the LGTF has never been done. Every character's game experience is that character's own story, and in this character's story, the events of the LGTF haven't happened until I do the TF. But if I have already done it, I can't do it again and still have the story make sense.
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The game presents the task force as never having happened before every time you do it.
Because it has to.
If 7 people on the team have never done that TF, but the 8th one has, the 8th one even mentioning that he has done this before breaks the story right then and there, because it's not supposed to have happened yet.
In a single player game, once you have done something, it stays done and that works because there is no one else in existence to do it. In an MMO, something can't just stay done, so they treat it as though it hasn't happened yet when you run it again.
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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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I consider all player chat in all chat channels to be OOC all the time, even when players insist that it isn't. Other people talking about having done a task that the game is presenting as a first-time occurrence is no different from me running across spoilers on the 'net. Hell, I played through half of Dragon Age 2 with a walkthrough open in the background, yet this did nothing to impact my suspension of disbelief. All it did was inform me what consequences my choices would have in the future and what to pick if I wanted a specific result.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
If 7 people on the team have never done that TF, but the 8th one has, the 8th one even mentioning that he has done this before breaks the story right then and there, because it's not supposed to have happened yet.
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Gameplay and story segregation.
This is different, however, when a game requires that a task be repeated, yet makes no storyline provisions to account for how this makes sense. I can deal with it with TFs, because you never HAVE to repeat TFs (even if I prefer they'd assume Ouroboros flashback from the second time on) if you don't want to. There's no reward to them that you can't earn through the rest of the game, hence why there is no reason to argue repetition is NECESSARY. Encouraged, perhaps, but never necessary.
Incarnate trials don't share the same out. They ARE necessary, because there are more rewards tied to them than can be earned in a single playthrough of them.
Take something like Assassin's Creed. Few things in this game make sense. If you fail a mission and the person you were supposed to guard gets killed, well, no big. It's just a memory anyway, you can just rewind it and try again. If you want to retry an old unique event, such as the defence and escape from Villa Monterigioni, you can. It's physically impossible to relive that event, because it's already passed, but this being nothing more than a memory, you can just jump back to that memory and experience it again. The guards you were supposed to kill covertly spotted you and ran away? Meh. You desynchronised from how the memory REALLY happened and you got kicked back to an earlier point in the same memory.
It's a cheat, but it makes sense. I don't see why such a narrative cheat cannot be introduced to repeatable tasks in City of Heroes. Once you have the badge for a TF, you henceforth get an extra line of dialogue at the top, rendered in blue, telling you "This is a task you have already accomplished. If you wish to experience it again, you can travel back in time and experience it once more. Are you sure you want to?" Simple as that.
I don't need explanation for inter-character mechanics like Global Mail or Global Chat, but for mechanics which persist within the same character, such as repetitive tasks, tip missions, Inventions and so forth, I would indeed like to have one.
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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.
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The point if the Lambda trial is sabotage. There no reason whatsoever that you can't sabotage a facility multiple times. There's really no overarching story to the trial. It's blowing up Cole's stuff to make his invasion harder to accomplish.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This is different, however, when a game requires that a task be repeated, yet makes no storyline provisions to account for how this makes sense.
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Likewise, there's no reason they couldn't keep trying the same scheme over in the B.A.F. each time figuring that there's only so many Primal heroes to stop us and maybe we'll get lucky this time.
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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Streeeeeeeeeeeeeetch.
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
The point if the Lambda trial is sabotage. There no reason whatsoever that you can't sabotage a facility multiple times. There's really no overarching story to the trial. It's blowing up Cole's stuff to make his invasion harder to accomplish.
Likewise, there's no reason they couldn't keep trying the same scheme over in the B.A.F. each time figuring that there's only so many Primal heroes to stop us and maybe we'll get lucky this time. |
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Naw, not really. Personally, I don't need a reason to repeat the trials and I suspect the vast majority of people won't either. But it's simply wrong to suggest that it makes no sense that more than one League would attack Lambda and BAF.|
Originally Posted by Clouded
Streeeeeeeeeeeeeetch.
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Lambda and BAF are high-value military targets. I would imagine they would be under attack almost constantly just as the Vanguard headquarters are.
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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Streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch.
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Naw, not really. Personally, I don't need a reason to repeat the trials and I suspect the vast majority of people won't either. But it's simply wrong to suggest that it makes no sense that more than one League would attack Lambda and BAF.
Lambda and BAF are high-value military targets. I would imagine they would be under attack almost constantly just as the Vanguard headquarters are. |
Sam, I'm not going to quote you, because this is only partly related.
Have you ever watched a movie or read a book more than 1 time? If so, why would you bother? You already know the story hasn't changed since the last time you did, so there's no point in doing it a second or third time.
Unless of course you happen to enjoy that story enough to want to watch or read it again.
I look at Task Forces the same way. I run the same TFs with the same character on a fairly regular basis just because I happen to enjoy them. I don't really care that this character has already done this, because I like the story enough to want to do it again.
I can't make any kind of statement about the Incarnate Trials because I haven't done them yet. But I will probably enjoy them simply based on the fact that I happen to enjoy challenging things on a few specific characters.
I don't farm because I don't enjoy it. I consider farming to be a grind based on that. If I enjoy doing something, doing it repeatedly doesn't feel like a grind because I'm having fun doing it. It's really that simple, at least for me.
Now, if the trials turn out to not be fun, I may feel differently about it. But I'm also not going to sit here and assume that something I've never done isn't fun, and call it a grind based on my assumption.
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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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So, in a war you would attack a target ONE time, and then leave it alone after they rebuild it? |
Originally Posted by Clouded
Streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch.
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That makes even less sense than it being attacked repeatedly.
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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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Hey, don't get all pedantic with me because you two are trying to rationalize grinding the same trial 10s, 20s, possibly 100s of times. I'm not going to even argue the sillyness. |
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
So, in a war you would attack a target ONE time, and then leave it alone after they rebuild it?
That makes even less sense than it being attacked repeatedly. |
I don't need the grind rationalized anymore than..."Do this because you get the components the fastest. "
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I've already explained my stance on it. It's only a grind if it isn't fun. |
Originally Posted by Clouded
Hey, don't get all pedantic with me because you two are trying to rationalize grinding the same trial 10s, 20s, possibly 100s of times. I'm not going to even argue the sillyness.
I don't need the grind rationalized anymore than..."Do this because you get the components the fastest. " |
And since I get most of my enjoyment out of the game by logging in and shredding stuff or blowing it up, I'm probably going to have fun with it.
And if I get tired of the trials......there is other stuff I can do until I feel like doing it again. I have other characters I can play, I don't have to keep doing the trials over and over when I get tired of them.
That seems to be where the disconnect is occurring. The people who don't like the repetition are approaching it from the viewpoint that the trials are the ONLY thing you can do once you start doing them.
Sure, if you do them over and over and over, with nothing else in between, you're going to get burned out on them quickly. But why do you have to do that? The only reason I can think of is impatience. I know the end game isn't going anywhere, I can do it when I feel like doing it and be just fine with it.
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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. |
This popcorn is delicious, and very buttery. Now, if I only had some root beer to go with it....
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Only if you believe him. Obviously, that 8th guy is part of a Nemesis plot, and should be kicked from the team immediately. |
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
If 7 people on the team have never done that TF, but the 8th one has, the 8th one even mentioning that he has done this before breaks the story right then and there, because it's not supposed to have happened yet.
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Likewise, there's no reason they couldn't keep trying the same scheme over in the B.A.F. each time figuring that there's only so many Primal heroes to stop us and maybe we'll get lucky this time.
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So, the Praetorians ARE Insane!|
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
The point if the Lambda trial is sabotage. There no reason whatsoever that you can't sabotage a facility multiple times. There's really no overarching story to the trial. It's blowing up Cole's stuff to make his invasion harder to accomplish.
Likewise, there's no reason they couldn't keep trying the same scheme over in the B.A.F. each time figuring that there's only so many Primal heroes to stop us and maybe we'll get lucky this time. |
Just in a predictable way.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
So, in a war you would attack a target ONE time, and then leave it alone after they rebuild it?
That makes even less sense than it being attacked repeatedly. |
However, I never enjoyed raids. I've been on a Mother-ship Raid once. Only to get the badge that was stupidly placed behind a shield so that it cannot be acquired unless there is a raid going on.
This is also why I am disappointed in the Incarnate system as it stands. It is, effectively, only for people who really enjoy raids.
There I was between a rock and a hard place. Then I thought, "What am I doing on this side of the rock?"
Not that it really matters, but...
I do tend to enjoy less detailed, somewhat generic content, because it allows me (and others) to fill in the details with our imagination and just focus on the fact that our characters are fighting these guys in this place for whatever reason seems appropriate.
And, when I find myself repeating content that I have already done, I generally blur the story that the game is repeating and just think of it more as further action within the life of my character(s) without a lot of the specifics that I may (or may not have) been immersed within the first time around.
None of this is so much conscious attempts on my part (as it often sounds contrived and such, when explaining it)... it's just the simple (for me) ability to play make believe with whatever you've got and in the way that you enjoy.
And yeah... if I don't enjoy it, I don't do it.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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I can sort of agree with this comparison, but only in part. I'd map it slightly differently.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Have you ever watched a movie or read a book more than 1 time? If so, why would you bother? You already know the story hasn't changed since the last time you did, so there's no point in doing it a second or third time.
Unless of course you happen to enjoy that story enough to want to watch or read it again. I look at Task Forces the same way. I run the same TFs with the same character on a fairly regular basis just because I happen to enjoy them. I don't really care that this character has already done this, because I like the story enough to want to do it again. |
If we're looking to map the act of watching a movie multiple times (I've watched AntZ over 100 times, and I say that literally), then I'd map that to playing multiple characters, or in other words playing the whole game again from beginning to end. I have no qualms with playing a game twice and getting the same experience and story. As a point of fact, I prefer it.
Sideways of that is the act of replaying a specific task on the same character. To me, this is like watching a movie which just happens to repeat a scene several times, ala Baby Geniuses. Unless there's a reason for why a scene is repeated, it strikes me as odd and makes me ask meta-story questions that I really shouldn't be asking about any cohesive story.
Let's look at it another way - you have a story about time travel and destiny. Let's take the movie Triangle as an example. In this story, an event takes place, but the story revolves around reliving said event and changing it. In this case, the story itself justifies why a scene repeats almost as is for a second time, third time, or possibly even more. In fact, the series Daybreak examines one of those "repeating day" plots, where each episode consists several repetitions of the same one day, and the series' entire point is to change SOMETHING so as to make time continue instead of looping. In these cases, you have an excuse of repeating the same story over and over and over again, each time trying to do something new and each time not getting what you want.
We have the perfect plot device in the face of Ourobors. Twilight's Son even sets up the necessary narrative, when he explains that your assassination of Loc'Danon may or may not have had any effect on the future, because apparently sometimes these things don't take or produce unpredictable results. So how about this plot:
You've run a TF. Any TF. You've succeeded. Preventing/causing this disaster was supposed to help prevent the Coming Storm, but what the Menders see in the future isn't what they expected to see. Something's wrong. Something about what you did didn't come out as they expected it to, and no-one knows what, exactly. So they offer you an opportunity - try the Task Force again and see if doing anything differently will fix the time line while they gather a larger body of data to try and reason out the problem.
There's your perfect plot device. If you do every task once, you never even have to know about time travel. If you choose to repeat a task, you do so via Ouroboros flashback. You keep the spoils and experience, but the event doesn't occur more than once in the story's timeline. You just keep going back to retry it.
I know it's a silly thing to get hung on, but it's a silly thing I've been able to avoid walking into until the advent of the Incarnate system. Incarnates are already tied to Ourobors. Ramiel is in there, the letter writer guy is somehow connected, Cimerora is somehow connected. So go the extra mile and complete the connection.
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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.
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I will be crafting my level shift/rare Alpha on day 1 of Issue 20, and will be getting additional Shards for more conversions by going through 50 levels worth of story arcs, so for me it's looking more like fun than grind. Your mileage will almost certainly vary, but it's nice we can each have our own fun.
I just wish the Inf costs would be increased. Yep.
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Originally Posted by Clouded
Streeeeeeeeeeeeeetch.
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Originally Posted by Clouded
Streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Isn't there another popular game where you run around chopping lumber and digging up ores? That to me is the worst kind of grind.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
It looks like grind, the worst kind of grind but am I just percieving it that way. |
NCsoft "focus group":
http://s410.photobucket.com/albums/p...view=slideshow
(shortcut: j.mp/warcrap)
Anyway, this reminds me of a conversation I had the other day:
03-31-2011 02:00:40 [Roleplayers]KiIIerkitty: I only got the game after villains came out, because city of heroes advertising made it look like some cheesy nerdy comicbook game. city of villains seemed way more cool, still does, shame pretty much every update is hero stuff
03-31-2011 02:01:47 [Roleplayers]KiIIerkitty: mmm, for villains it's like finished grandville do RSF... now become a hero
03-31-2011 02:02:23 [Roleplayers]KiIIerkitty: RSF is *old*, seems like thye havent added anything new to the game for villains really
03-31-2011 02:03:16 [Roleplayers]The New Black: they can't, then the vocal hero players, who outnumber the vocal villains, will bark up a torm.
03-31-2011 02:04:11 [Roleplayers]The New Black: er... storm, even.
03-31-2011 02:10:21 [Roleplayers]fenrir: Which of course only makes more people go blueside which makes them less likely to add to redside...
03-31-2011 02:13:04 [Roleplayers]KiIIerkitty: yeah I don't think its peoples' fault so much as the company, the way ncsoft closed down tabula rasa completely even though it was making a profit proved they are pretty ruthless
03-31-2011 02:13:32 [Roleplayers]Emgro: I miss TR.
03-31-2011 02:13:43 [Roleplayers]KiIIerkitty: they thought giving the servers and staff to Aion would give them a bigger profit, it backfiredo n them haha.
Really, I dont mind repetitive grinding when I know there is a good reward at the end. right now, I'm in a mode where all I do are Tip missions on all my eligible characters or working to get other chars up to Tip eligibility.
All the devs would need to do to make me extremely happy and content would be to create 10-12 Incarnate only Tip missions that drop Shards, Threads, Notices, Ashes, Dust, Dirt or Lint (or whatever other silly Incarnate currency they devise) and I would have more than enough endgame content to last me for a long, long time.