So now CoH is a "raiding" game.
By
Acroyear2,
Posted on: 2011-05-05 08:43 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Make no mistake, I agree with you. I'm willing to wait as long as it takes to get what I want in most cases. I'm just saying that it's not really important why people want the abilities.
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Originally Posted by Tetsuko_NA
Clouded & EvilGeko:
Ok, fair enough. Speaking for myself, I want Purple Sets for some of my characters, and playing the game for long enough for them to drop/getting enough H-V Merits/earning enough INF looks like it's going to take quite a while. Fortunately, I enjoy playing the game, so it's not a problem for me. (To forestall: I'm not saying the situations are analagous, nor am I putting down anyone who doesn't agree with my POV.) I just wasn't entirely sure what was being said - I was under the impression that an argument other than "They're cool, I want them," was being made. That is, of course, a perfectly good argument in and of itself. So, thanks! |
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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Currently none of it is and that is part of the problem.|
Originally Posted by Tetsuko_NA
What solo or small-team-based content in this game is difficult enough at base level to require Incarnate Abilities?
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One of the reason that top level content in MMOs (not just this one) tends to be team focused is that it is a lot easier to balance content around a large team than for a single person (or even a single person).
Content that is challenging for a veteran player on an IO'd Scrapper is going to be almost impossible for someone on a weaker Character (say a SO'd Defender using one of the less solo friendly sets). Conversely content that is challenging for lower power level characters is going to be trivial for someone on a high end character.
Now to some degree it can be done but it takes effort. Trapdoor is a good example, by favoring ranged attacks over melee he helps balance out the ATs a bit (since melee characters are, on average, stronger soloers than ranged characters).
This gets even more complicated when you start talking about small teams. An Elite Boss that is balanced to present a challenge for 1 player will become trivial for a small team of 2 or 3 players. Good solo/small team content would need some way to scale boss encounters to a much finer degree than is needed in the trials.
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The fact that this is a game where the Devs have learned to respond to player wishes (contrasted with EQ1 back in the old days of We'll Tell You What You Like) is one of the reasons I keep coming back to CoX. It's also the reason I even bother with feedback or posting on issues like this. Wouldnt' waste my time if I thought they were routinely going to ignore community feedback. The Devs do actually listen, and that's something I appreciate and recognize. I'm certainly not claiming Incarnate Solo/small team content isn't coming. I'm just saying I'm not going to be impressed and grateful with it until I can actually use it. |
Originally Posted by Blue_Mourning
The thing is, save for a few select things, most of the things the Devs have said that they're looking into have been either fixed or changed. If you put the things on one hand that they haven't changed or fixed and put the rest of the things on another that they have you should be absolutely staggered.
Things that haven't changed that need it/or fixed: PvP, Base Raids, Bases, Stalkers, Shadow Shard Things that they've looked into and changed: Stalkers, Blasters, Dominators, Defenders (solo damage buff), Side switching, Power Customization, Weapon Customization, Redraw (on some sets), CoP (even if I don't like it), Market Merge, Huge numbers of QoL issues, Inherent Stamina, Bruising on Tankers (minor, but it was a bone that the Tanks had been asking for in some form for a while), Server List Merge There are some long standing issues, but the long standing issues do tend to get looked at, even if they don't get solved - PvP was actually looked at and changed (even if it was for the worse). Bases need love, and Stalkers need....something, but even Stalkers are on both lists for a reason - they've gotten an over haul even if it didn't completely fix the issue (since the issue appears to be systemic and conceptual, and therefore not easy to fix). When the devs declare they're going to look at something in the past few years they actually have a pretty good track record for being up front about stuff. It sometimes takes a while, but it does happen. I think claiming that you don't believe them when they say they're just looking at it is a bit ridiculous. Should you get excited? Probably not. But they're using non-specific language because that's how they talk, and that's how they're required to talk and if they're smart, that's how they have to talk. I wouldn't trust the dev team that speaks in absolutes because there's almost no way you can deliver on absolutes, until you absolutely know you can. The devs have said that they're looking into it. I think they've at least brought themselves enough time to look into it without claiming that they're not going to try to make a fix. |
Although honestly, I can see how some people would be suspicious on this topic given that the "solobility and end game thread" was hammered shut with a rather abrupt "We really appreciate feedback, now shut the hell up and stop providing feedback because we really don't want any more." Doesn't exactly generate a sense of "we're willing to listen." Still, despite that incident, I'd say that given CoX's history of improvement and new content as well as the efforts to maintain a solo-small group friendly system in the past, I do personally expect that they're being sincere with us.
(I suspect the fact that the devs actually do listen is why our more vehement "NAAAAAAOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Don't Let The Whiners get anything except how I like to play! NAOOOO! They're not entitled to have their fun like I am!" kids get so outraged at members expressing a desire for more solo or small group content. They seem to feel they're somehow losing something if another person gets something they want and are thus frigthened by customer feeback that the devs might act on to improve the game for people with other tastes.)
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All true. But challenging solo content doesn't necessarily need to involve mega tough bosses. It can include long arcs with varying types of difficult problems to solve. CoX is sorely lacking in "puzzle" challenges, so that is one area they could develop for that's scarsely been touched. They just need to expand their creative thinking beyond the "how many newer, tougher AV's can we throw at the userbase" hacked to death reasoning.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Currently none of it is and that is part of the problem.
One of the reason that top level content in MMOs (not just this one) tends to be team focused is that it is a lot easier to balance content around a large team than for a single person (or even a single person). Content that is challenging for a veteran player on an IO'd Scrapper is going to be almost impossible for someone on a weaker Character (say a SO'd Defender using one of the less solo friendly sets). Conversely content that is challenging for lower power level characters is going to be trivial for someone on a high end character. Now to some degree it can be done but it takes effort. Trapdoor is a good example, by favoring ranged attacks over melee he helps balance out the ATs a bit (since melee characters are, on average, stronger soloers than ranged characters). This gets even more complicated when you start talking about small teams. An Elite Boss that is balanced to present a challenge for 1 player will become trivial for a small team of 2 or 3 players. Good solo/small team content would need some way to scale boss encounters to a much finer degree than is needed in the trials. |
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One of the reasons that many MMORPGs don't add "puzzle" type challenges is that they tend to be solved by one, then copied by many via sites like Paragon Wiki.
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Originally Posted by Fritzy
All true. But challenging solo content doesn't necessarily need to involve mega tough bosses. It can include long arcs with varying types of difficult problems to solve. CoX is sorely lacking in "puzzle" challenges, so that is one area they could develop for that's scarsely been touched. They just need to expand their creative thinking beyond the "how many newer, tougher AV's can we throw at the userbase" hacked to death reasoning.
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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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And people who want to use the word raid will continue to do so no matter what you tell them. How did that work out for you?
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Actually, I'll just continue to post whatever I want within the rules. And you'll continue to snip. Your choice.
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Here is my experience without hyperbole or anything, just where I am at. I am bouncing between CoH and WoW atm, and the problem I am having with both, and why I won't likely be subscribed to either soon, is that most of my play time is expended sitting in a LFG queue. In WoW, its LFG queues for heroics dungeons and the new ZA/ZG, and I am looking at 45-1hr since I am neither a healer nor a tank.
Here, in COH, on Guardian server, I am looking at 30mins on average (despite that the queue says the average wait time is 4-5mins, it isn't), to run an incarnate TF, where i feel not so super as me and my team smash our faces on the content, and I won't even go into how much it sucks as a MM. This is just too much, and what's worse on the COH side of things is you can't run anything else mission-wise while you wait either. I get logged out for going afk about half the time because all you can really do while in the LFG queue is sit tight.
This design model doesn't work for me in either of these games, so there you have it. That's the similarity I see between the two, and its a crappy one that makes both unappealing to me. My 2 cents.
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Puzzle challenges do not work well in an video game in terms of re-playability. In a single player game this isn't to much of a problem, people will either do it once and move on or will happily do it multiple times to improve their "score" but in an MMO it becomes a real problem when balancing rewards versus time. If you've done a puzzle once there's no challenge in doing it again (except maybe seeing if you can do it faster) so a player can use that to infinitely farm rewards.|
Originally Posted by Fritzy
All true. But challenging solo content doesn't necessarily need to involve mega tough bosses. It can include long arcs with varying types of difficult problems to solve. CoX is sorely lacking in "puzzle" challenges, so that is one area they could develop for that's scarsely been touched. They just need to expand their creative thinking beyond the "how many newer, tougher AV's can we throw at the userbase" hacked to death reasoning.
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If a player can only do the puzzle challenge once this isn't to bad since even if they "cheat" and look up the solution online they only get one set of rewards. The problem is a solo/small-team incarnate path needs to be repeatable which conflicts with making good puzzles.
The devs could try and make randomly generated puzzles but the options there are pretty limited and tricky to do in a way that fits with the rest of the game. You'd probably end up with "City of Mini-Games" where the solo-incarnate path involved "boss fights" that had nothing to do with your character and instead involved external things such as a game of chess, a randomized block puzzle or similar contrived scenarios. Now while this would appeal to some people I don't think it's what people want when discussing a solo/small team incarnate path (although actually a chess-themed villain with chess piece minions could be kind-off fun).
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And yet Portal is viewed as one of the greatest games ever made. It's not like MMOs are unique in having access to the internet.
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
One of the reasons that many MMORPGs don't add "puzzle" type challenges is that they tend to be solved by one, then copied by many via sites like Paragon Wiki.
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That's not due to it being a puzzle game. That's due to it being equal parts innovative, hilarious, and well-made.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
And yet Portal is viewed as one of the greatest games ever made. It's not like MMOs are unique in having access to the internet.
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My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
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It's due in part to it being a puzzle game, because being a puzzle game is a large part of how it is innovative and well-made (I don't think the puzzles necessarily have anything to do with its humour.)
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Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
That's not due to it being a puzzle game. That's due to it being equal parts innovative, hilarious, and well-made.
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Portal has rewards beyond just moving on to the next level? (Serious question)
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
And yet Portal is viewed as one of the greatest games ever made. It's not like MMOs are unique in having access to the internet.
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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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The Incarnate System has rewards beyond just moving on to the next level (of Incarnate Abilities)?
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Portal has rewards beyond just moving on to the next level? (Serious question)
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I don't know if you've played (or even heard of) Dungeons & Dragons Online but that is one MMO where the content usually involved puzzles of some sort and that includes end game raids. Additionally, DDO end game content also involved heavy repetition since it has a random loot generation system. My opinion for such a system is really mixed. |
Originally Posted by Fritzy
It can include long arcs with varying types of difficult problems to solve. CoX is sorely lacking in "puzzle" challenges, so that is one area they could develop for that's scarsely been touched.
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While the puzzles can be challenging and interesting initially, it becomes llittle more than a time sink in subsequent attempts once you figure it out. In fact, after about 5-10 runs of the same quest/raid, it becomes rather tedious. So, what ended up happening was that 1 or 2 people would just solo the puzzles while the rest of the raid party isn't even in the zone yet (or fully formed for that matter). It's a nice concept but unless the puzzle is randomized each time, the whole process is just one giant waste of time if you run the mission more than once.
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tl;dr version:|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
And yet Portal is viewed as one of the greatest games ever made. It's not like MMOs are unique in having access to the internet.
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Single Player Games have different constraints from MMOs.
In detail:
I touched on this in my post but since you bought it up I'll go into more detail. Unless a game uses randomly generated content the ability of a player to consume content far outpaces the developers ability to create it. What this means is that if the player wishes to keep consuming the content they have to repeat content that they've done before.
In a single player game this isn't really a problem, a person will play through the game and then either shelve it or play the same content again for their personal enjoyment. In an MMO however this becomes a problem. Content in MMOs is pretty mcuh required to be repeatable and has rewards attached to it which are balanced based on the time and challenge/skill required to complete the content. Repeating a puzzle that you've done before presents zero challenge to the player (and requires no skill beyond the ability to look up the solution online) so if you're just rewarding based solely on time you might as well have a button that says "push this button 100 times for a reward".
The "solution" would of course be to make randomly generated puzzles. The problem here is how to do it within the context of the game? Portal style world-interaction puzzles are VERY difficult to randomly generate and would require the devs to first make a random map generator (a challenging problem on it's own). A mini-game based puzzle system is a lot more viable, you can design a rule set that allows you to generate lots of variations of the same basic puzzle (Sudoku is a good example of that) but that has it's own set of problems. The obvious one is that it is still subject to automatic solution generators, after all if a computer can create the puzzle then another computer can solve it (this can be mitigated by making the puzzle something that is difficult to transfer to an external system). The second (and more serious) problem is that mini-gmaes throw people out of the system. If you could fully incarnate a character by playing, say, 300 games of Sudoku would you consider that a viable solo path?
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Because that game contained a large number of very good puzzles, and happened to be "wrappered" with an excellent story. And also happened to be *exactly* the right length. (About two and a half hours, if you didn't get excessively hung up on any of the puzzles.) It also had very limited replayability, because once you know how to solve each puzzle, you're just running through for the dialogue or so that you can poke around and try to break things, or to take a closer look at some of the weird clues. Portal was a weird "perfect storm" of game design, not something that can be reliably repeated, and certainly not something you could turn into an infinite series of repetitive missions in an MMO. (They spent years making the sequel, by the way, and most of the reviews summarize to "It's really good. But not as good as the first one." And it still has almost no replayability.)
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
And yet Portal is viewed as one of the greatest games ever made. It's not like MMOs are unique in having access to the internet.
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About half the people I've seen looking to join the new Trials just called them TFs - which is understandable - they're instanced maps, you gather in one zone to start them, and you're recruited by a leader.
The only 2 raids we have are open zone events that are triggered by the players performing an action in the zone, with anyone able to drop in and out of the raid at any time.
There's also the fact that the Alpha slot was linked to 2 new TFs, plus had the older TFs linked to it with the WST - so it's natural for a lot of players to assume that the 4 new slots are linked to TFs too - plus, the non-Incarnate Trials are also similar to the Incarnate Trials, using a similar design to TFs.
The length and team size of the Incarnate Trials also blurs the difference between them and TFs as well - 8 people doing Lambda Sector in 30 minutes on one map compared to 8 people doing the LGTF in 60 minutes on 5 maps makes the LGTF seem like a more complex and hardcore task.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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The Incarnate system is built around the Incarnate Trials - it's unlikely that they'll design all the Trials to only need 8 people to complete them.
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Originally Posted by Elfis_Presley
Amen. The raiding hasn't gotten as boring, guild-necessitating, and time critical as other games yet, but we're stepping in the wrong direction. Wish BAF and LAM were single-team, hope new content is single team.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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This really makes no sense as an arguement. And if it really does reflect your view of the Incarnate system, the *why do you still care?* I ask this as a player who has decided that I will not participate in the Incarnate system at all until there is a realistic solo path. (And no, Shards are not realistic for anything but Alpha, and only barely for that.)|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
The Incarnate System has rewards beyond just moving on to the next level (of Incarnate Abilities)?
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From my point of view, the "reward" of the Incarnate system is that your character gets more powerful. For the Alpha slot, you get a little faster, or a little stronger, or a little more durable. The other slots add additional abilities that your character didn't previously posses: pets for melee classes, shields and powerful AoE attacks or debuffs, and the ability to alter the basic nature of many of your other powers. (IE, adding a proc to you attacks to boost damage or debuff the target.)
This is really nothing like Portal, where solving a puzzle results in being rewarded with... another puzzle. Possibly a puzzle with a slightly different set of available tools, but those are built into the design of the puzzle itself. The only upgrades Chell gets in the entire game are being given a gun to allow her to open one portal, and then getting it upgraded to create two linked portals. That's it. That's the sum total of her powers for the entire game.
Trying to continue to make some kind of comparison between CoH and Portal is silly. First, it's like comparing apples and pantyhose. Second, it's a good way to get the thread auto-killed, or at best pruned to the point that it doesn't make any sense.
The fact remains that "Portal-like puzzles" don't work as well in a multiplayer game, and especially not in a situation where you're going to need to run the content repeatedly. Trying to make a "random puzzle generator" is a HUGE undertaking. For one thing, the puzzle generator would probably have to be built to not only design the puzzle, but to solve it - unless you're willing to deal with it randomly generating puzzles that can't be beaten.
In CoH specifically, you'd also have to come up with some form of puzzle that makes any kind of sense in the game world, and that will remain challenging for characters with huge variety of skills, and no guarantee of having any *specific* skill needed by the puzzle. "Jump across the lava without touching it" would be pretty challenging for a "natural" character with only Ninja Leap, completely trivial for a flyer or teleporter, and either easy or really annoying for a Super Jumper, depending on how low the ceiling is. It'd probably be impossible for a character with just Sprint. Pretty much the only way to avoid that problem would be to introduce a randomly generated mini-game that has *nothing* to do with AT or powers at all. And at that point, you're awarding Incarnate Threads for playing Bejeweled, or Plants vs. Zombies.
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Yes, of course it does. Each Incarnate ability you get makes you more powerful. It doesn't just unlock the next level of abilities. Not sure what your point was. I haven't played Portal so I really didn't know the answer to the question.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
The Incarnate System has rewards beyond just moving on to the next level (of Incarnate Abilities)?
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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.
The puzzle concept was only one of what could be many suggestions for mission concepts. Recently, I've been running GW(Factions;Nightfall) content and am very impressed with many of the challenges and most not involving mega bosses to be difficult. GW missions are more varied and challenging than most of the solo content in CoX and highly repeatable in a virtually lag free setting. When I take time out to do some CoX stuff, the difference between the two games becomes even more startling. I can barely stand to run the CoX stuff before becoming very bored with the content and irritated with the lag and long load times.
Imagine how much better and inclusive the CoX end game could have been if they had chosen to put their time, money and resources into content with depth and imagination rather than taking the easy way out and creating dozens of trials with nothing but increasingly less imaginative bosses and 20 minute situations to 'challenge' the players. Admit it, few players do these TF's repeatedly because they admire the content - most simply want the rewards and they are willing to put up with any old crap to get them.
I want an end game created with Elegance, Class and Style in it's progression to a phenomenal finale. What we are getting instead is a laggy patchwork of loosely related Trials and Tf's that yield substantial rewards but are not very memorable beyond that.
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Ditch the queue. Most people don't use the queue at all, which is why the average listed time is.... misleading? No, let's call it "worthless". When a full league enters the queue to do a trial, they are calculated into the average.
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Originally Posted by Dominemesis
Here is my experience without hyperbole or anything, just where I am at. I am bouncing between CoH and WoW atm, and the problem I am having with both, and why I won't likely be subscribed to either soon, is that most of my play time is expended sitting in a LFG queue. In WoW, its LFG queues for heroics dungeons and the new ZA/ZG, and I am looking at 45-1hr since I am neither a healer nor a tank.
Here, in COH, on Guardian server, I am looking at 30mins on average (despite that the queue says the average wait time is 4-5mins, it isn't), |
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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It's how people communicate. Language isn't binary. Our word choice can be used to convey shades of intent above and beyond the literal meaning of our words, and "literal meaning" is actually context sensitive. It's similar to how extra communication is conveyed beyond the spoken word using tone, emphasis and non-vocal body language.|
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Let me ask you this. Why did you read, "When you all get older you're understand," into my post?
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So I am used to people conveying meaning beyond the simple literal meaning of their words. I am used to doing it myself, and I probably spend much more time than the average person considering the exact words I will use to say something. (Despite this I am often mortified at how my own hurried, last second edits made between missions or some such mangle my careful intent.)
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| I didn't say that. I discussed how my personal views developed over time. It's simply a fact, that I used to get much more upset about this stuff, but age and experience mellowed me out. I know teenagers who have the same outlook. I know we all read things into other folks posts. I do it, everyone does. But I try (not always successful) to just read what people write and react to that. |
All that said, I am far beyond being a teenager, for better and worse, and while I don't consider myself impatient, I consider your patience unusually deep, based on not only my own sense of patience, but the patience of every MMO player I have ever known to any significant degree. I don't think it's reasonable of you to expect others to share your level of patience, even if we should expect them to have more than they actually exhibit on average.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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I disagree. I'm sure by now, the cut scenes have been firmly etched into the memory banks of every player who has participated in the trials. Especially Mother Mayhem's assets.
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Originally Posted by Fritzy
What we are getting instead is a laggy patchwork of loosely related Trials and Tf's that yield substantial rewards but are not very memorable beyond that.
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Clouded & EvilGeko:
Ok, fair enough.
Speaking for myself, I want Purple Sets for some of my characters, and playing the game for long enough for them to drop/getting enough H-V Merits/earning enough INF looks like it's going to take quite a while.
Fortunately, I enjoy playing the game, so it's not a problem for me.
(To forestall: I'm not saying the situations are analagous, nor am I putting down anyone who doesn't agree with my POV.)
I just wasn't entirely sure what was being said - I was under the impression that an argument other than "They're cool, I want them," was being made. That is, of course, a perfectly good argument in and of itself.
So, thanks!
"Strength of numbers is the delight of the timid. The valiant in spirit glory in fighting alone."
- Mahatma Gandhi
Still CoHzy after all these years...