Orphaned game subsystems

Just dropped in to get some feedback: was curious what elements of CoH that have largely been "orphaned" over time the people who visit the forum would point to as something they'd like to have revisited/enhanced by the devs at some point (if any, of course).

There are a wide variety of elements that have drifted into the background over time, ranging from the trivial to the "that was 2 entire updates!" Note that most of these are not truly removed (unlike Base Salvage... ok, bad example), they just haven't gotten much attention in the past couple years, and many are either largely borked or superfluous at present.

A partial list of "possibles", off the top of my head:

Kiosks (formerly displayed top 5 kill counts by zone, that kind of thing)
Original enhancements (TO, SO, DO, Hydra/Titan (and Yin's Talismans), even Hami-Os to some extent... everything outside Invention system)
Shadow Shard (tfs/zones)
Sewer and Eden trials
Supergroups and Bases
Mission Architect ("You will be able to."... er, when?)
Hazard zones (anybody ever been in DA except for Numina and/or badging... ever?)
PvP zones (anybody ever been in Bloody Bay except for Shivan farming and/or badging... ever?)
Regular missions
Contacts
Origins (Magic/Mutant/Natural/etc)
PB/WS-related stuff
Villain zones (anybody ever been in Nerva except for... ok, over the top, I know)

I'm tempted to add Tips/Alignment system, as well (I've just had to fight too many Carnival over too many stupid masks, I suspect.)

Anyway, just curious what else might be out there... thanks in advance.

Kiosks : I put up a suggestion before to use these to find teams or as an ingame event noticeboard/signup sheet. Its a pity they arent more useful.

Original Enhancements: these need some love. IOs outstrip them by the mid 20s and IOs dont lose effectiveness when you level. I would have thought that an enhancement specifically attuned to your origin would give more benefit than an enhancement thats generic. How to make an improvement without overpowerign them is another issue altogether.

Shadow Shard: I love the shadow shards... i hate SSTF1 but the shards themselves were just such a cool leap of imagination for the game. definitely needs some attention and developement. maybe make it co-op and open a praetorian base there and make it the actual main assault route with the current incursions just being decoys?

Sewer and Eden trials: I still play these with my SG. Very rare I see a call to join one otherwise though.

SGs and Bases: SGs themselves dont need much more work imho beyond some cosmetic options. bases need some developement. Some new tilesets perhaps.

MA: I used to like it, now I'm "meh". there are some great arcs and some very very talented mission designers out there. I, personally, would love to see a mapping utility that allowed you to build a map like you currently build a base (but with more tilesets, which could be given to the SG bases as mentioned above ) and a basic scripting engine for placing triggers and events much like neverwinter Nights did in its adventure editor.

Hazard zones: I agree, need more use. they are a rgeat idea but they are underused, possibly for being too specific in their purpose/story? its easy just to let them sit there and forget about them. there was a suggestion before (either by me or in a thread I posted years ago on zone events) about having the DA mists invade a zone and have the players forced to defend the area from the incursion. Wont happen but somethign along those lines would make the zones more or an immediate threat to the players and encourage visits .. or could just waste dev time when no-one visits anyway

PvP zones: fun at the start, got old quickly. if not for the PvP players I would be happy if they dropped them tbh. There is a suggestion for a PvP server, perhaps they could port them over there and have open PvP but as already brought up in that thread, they'd have to fix PvP first before making it open world or it'd be too annoying.

Regular missions? are these neglected/orphaned?

Contacts: I dotn really have an opinion on them no ideas here.

origins: need to be more of an intrigal part of a toon beyond just starting concept. I'd like to see animations change for powers depending on your origin or perhaps an optional branch off the original powerset that you can follow. However , anything that happens now would have to be optional or already existing toons could find themselves unfairly unbalanced or broken and forced to change from the character they've already built.

PB/WS stuff: tried em, didnt take. more content for them might be the answer but is there enough interest to merit more content?

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Additions: Arenas : are these still used? honest question. its been ages since I've been invited to join an arena quick league.

zone events: fires in Steel canyon, rave in skyway. we need more of these that players can opt in to playing. personally I'd like it if they had a consequence for not tackling them (like the clockwork activity leading to Paladin if left alone).

I agree with most of those, I just don't understand why you think Missions/Contacts/Tips/Villain zones are orphaned :P

Explanations:

First, note that my list is just suggestions to prime the pump. I agree some of my list are, at least arguably, not orphans.

Villain zones: somewhat of a joke entry. Most of the servers I have characters on, redside is pretty dead... but I really don't think those are orphaned by the devs to any great degree. Others may disagree, however.

Contacts: I include this one because they are largely redundant at present, and the little functionality they ever did possess (TO/DO/SO sales) is duplicated by stores and deprecated due to IOs. Even just adding an ability to buy 1 specific piece of common invention salvage from each one every so often (say, 1/week, flag resets at the WST changeover) would give them some value again, IMO.

Missions:
Here, I was specifically referring to old-style mission arcs, gained thru contacts, no special rewards except a handful of merits at arc completion (assuming you don't outlevel it via tips/radio/AE/taskforces first, of course). In short, they provide nothing that can't be gotten far more easily in another way. (This interweaves with my perspective on Contacts as well, of course).

I myself haven't run a full mission arc outside of Praetoria or the training zones in probably 2 years. Midnighters? Wait for someone else to get to unlocking stage. Ouro? Grab the portal from someone else. Badges? Run it thru Ouro. (Yes, even the Mirror arcs)
Even Vanguard unlock can be gotten around (tho that one is so short, I've probably done it in prep for a mothership raid, just don't remember it...)

Tips:
Really just complaining about the lack of variety. Considering I've bought 5 purples with A-merits so far, as well as other goodies, and gotten the full compliment of alignment roundtrip badges on several characters, it's probably more just a matter of me doing those too much... but I wouldn't mind seeing some expansion.

More later... duty calls

-Kiosks (formerly displayed top 5 kill counts by zone, that kind of thing)

Broken for a while, yeah. Would love to see stuff added.

-Original enhancements (TO, SO, DO, Hydra/Titan (and Yin's Talismans), even -Hami-Os to some extent... everything outside Invention system)

I wouldn't call this "Abandoned." It's a basic system. It's fairly solid. IOs are the "next step," from commons (don't expire) to what you can do with sets. I'd call it a "finished" system.

-Shadow Shard (tfs/zones)

Needs content, yes. So does Dark Astoria, Boomtown, Crey's Folly...

-Sewer and Eden trials

Eden, not so much. I think the sewer still has a few things needing fixing, though.

-Supergroups and Bases

Yep.

-Mission Architect ("You will be able to."... er, when?)

Not so much "You will be able to," but... when's the last time you saw something added to Devs Choice? Where are the extra slots? How about search improvements and listing improvements?

-Hazard zones (anybody ever been in DA except for Numina and/or badging... ever?)

See other comment. However, yes, I go to DA constantly. I love the zone. Thus why I want content added to it.

-PvP zones (anybody ever been in Bloody Bay except for Shivan farming and/or badging... ever?)

Again, yes, people DO go there. However, it's not the zones that need fixing - it's PVP overall. I think the last time I mentioned PVP zones, I came up with five people, total, I'd run into over the last six months. Only one wanted to fight. One vanished (Siren's Call - you can tell) as soon as they saw I was in on the other side. (Not because the character was a known uber PVPer or anything - mine aren't - but just because I was *there.*)

-Regular missions

I wouldn't call that abandoned. They get added to often enough. Some could possibly use revising to go with current game lore, but I wouldn't say these are abandoned.

-Contacts

Too vague to really say anything about. We get more of them. The stores haven't been changed on older ones, but contacts have evolved. (Edit: No, I don't agree they're "redundant" in any way.)

-Origins (Magic/Mutant/Natural/etc)

No. Origins have nothing to "fix," "Expand on" or "revisit."

-PB/WS-related stuff

WS just had (or have coming up) a change to nebulous form, and PBs are getting looked at, supposedly. So no. (Also, re:evangel's comment - PB/WS already have far better custom arcs for them than VEATs, so "more content" isn't needed.)

-Villain zones (anybody ever been in Nerva except for... ok, over the top, I know)

They get content added to them still. They could use MORE zones for some variety, though. So I'd say this is a "no, not really" as well.

- I'm tempted to add Tips/Alignment system, as well (I've just had to fight too many Carnival over too many stupid masks, I suspect.)

They just added more tips, what, last issue? so no.

See my Guides and Tutorials

The arena pet system is a neat idea. I am not quite sure what to do with it. Perhaps if there were some sort of wagering involved...idk. Or maybe useful rewards?

Base Editor...

I just can't really put anything else even close to that item on the list.

Using lights and floor tiles and office furniture/cubicles just so I can slowly work around not having a better editor UI gets tiring...
Not to mention all the nifty objects and tilesets and such that could be added...
Never mind additional features and such that could be added...

Really though, that is a Zombie Horse with a baseball bat aura.

The biggies IMO are:
- Mission Architect
- Base Editing
- Old Zones and TFs

Seriously though, nothing is going to be done with them. Revamping or enhancing old content doesnt sell the game. New shinies do. And the marketing dept. definitely appears to have a tight control on what the devs are allowed to do.

All of those are pretty good, but mine are these:

1) The construction in the Northeast corner of Steel Canyon. What was going on there...?

2) The Bridge to Nowhere (obviously headed to Alaska) in Port Oakes. Where was it headed...?

3) The Moon Base. This should have happened a few yesterdays ago.

4) The Big Red Ball. This should have happened, period.

Ok, those last two, I admit, can't be orphaned because they weren't put in (yet.)

And for my personal #1 orphaned thing and my pet peeve, see my signature.

Thanks, some good stuff here.

Gladiators in the arena... I waver on this one, but given I had _completely forgotten about it_, I suppose I would have to agree that it's a candidate, at the least...

Various "never-ending" construction projects around the zones (Steel, Port Oakes, etc)... heh, good call on "abandoned" status... It would be nice to see those progress, but I'd rate it very low priority unless they had some inspired idea for what they'd be changing these things to, IMO.

Bases and AE are the most disappointing ones for me, as well, btw. (A more state-of-the-art LFG/LFM/teaming interface appears to be getting phased in, thankfully, otherwise _that_ would top my list... tho it's still miles from where I'd like it to end up...)

My thanks to all that responded so far...

Kiosks should be used as real player information centers. MOTD, GMOTD, new features and contacts, and WST notices should all be posted at the Kiosks. They could even be used as a/the contact for Radio/Paper/Tip missions. So much potential just wasted!

As far as the kiosks go, i thought you needed Hero Stats now to make them work...dunno could be wrong....

As for abandoned stuff...
-Oyes bases need to be revisited, need more stuff...tiles, items, WATER (<.< >.> ), placeable npc's (even if only for show lol), and definately a better UI...lord, stacking crates/tables to raise stuff is so dang frustrating).

-The trials still get run, just not as much, or as publicly

-The pvp zones USE to have a constant, even if small community.....really now, be honest devs, What was so broken about the original PVP system (other than the whiners)? This was abandoned by the PLAYERS because of all the rule changes, a dev even quit over it. (note...no matter whatcha do, you CAN'T balance a inherantly unbalanced feature...unless of course you reduce it to only one AT )

-As far as i can tell AE isn't really abandoned either, it had it's heyday and when most of the exploits were removed, fell from grace lol. Btw They did add Praetorian stuff a little while back. My only gripe about it is I would like to have the option to actually build my own maps rather than choose from premade ones :/.

-As for the rest (Contacts, Tips, etc..) I gotta agree with Memphis Bill, they seem allright to me

Eden Trial got patched recently so you no longer need to have someone within range to start it, and it will be the WST this month. Abandoned Sewer Trial got the same issue fixed and the contact and pre-missions adjusted not too long ago as well. Not sure I'd call that orphaned.

But I get you're calling for a revamp of the trials themselves, to which I say, they work pretty well now with proper exemping, and if people choose not to run them, that's their loss. I ran AST just last week and had a blast.

There's a lot of things need fixing before these two do. Some even made your list. Two I can think of that didn't would be Cavern of Transcendence and the Blue Side respec trial.

Getting 8 people and ghost porting them without killing anything has become the preferred way to do that trial, and while amusing I don't think it should be a race to keep 8 people connected and awake long enough to click a glowie. I know a specced character can run people through in under 10 minutes. That's part of the problem.

Spending a mandatory 30 minutes in the reactor room while slow spawning ambushes pop up every so often is almost an exercise in enforced boredom.

Basically I think with the addition of Incarnate Trials, all earlier trials should be a training ground leading up to the skills you need. Abandoned Sewer, Villain Respec, and even Eden in it's somewhat broken form, come the closest to meeting that goal. The rest need help.

I don't see missions or contacts as "abandoned." If all people want to do is grind endless repetitive missions, then yeah, I can see how contacts may seem old hat TO THEM. Personally, I find contacts easily rewarding enough to play through, and I find they offer far superior and much more diverse content than the... What is it, like... 10 Tip missions per 10-level range? It's been seven years and I still have contacts I haven't worked with more than once or twice. I did all the Tip missions the game had to offer within about a week or two of that Issue launching.

Quote:

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.