Ok, listen, this is starting to get to a critical mass
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2011-06-29 14:37 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Once again I see a post where someone intentionally ignores the contingent of players running the trials because that IS the only (timely) way to get the stuff they really like and not because they're enjoying what they have to do in order to get it.
Those players aren't going to be griping during the trial. They're already resigned to the way things are. They're going to come here to gripe instead.
Be well, people of CoH.
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That's a tad far.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Incarnate is the new PVP.
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
Would also be nice to get three warnings before someone is hit like on BAF.
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Yeah - the Incarate system is fully supported by the devs with a long-term development plan |
Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue
That's a tad far.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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This pretty much sums up my thoughts. I enjoy the trials, and I only run a couple of them a week. I don't have T4 powers in all my Incarnate slots yet, but I will be able to at some point. Even with just a small amount of merits saved up, I was able to get most of the costume stuff that I actually wanted to use right away. I don't need to unlock every single part of it right this moment, and I like that I have some costume stuff to work towards and have people to run trials with to get them.
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Originally Posted by Organica
I like the trials, I don't run them over much, I like that the game now has end-game content beyond hami and ship raids and a few extra-tough Tfs/SFs. I think it makes sense that end-game trials have some sort of special reward. I know people will complain that they want the reward without running the end-game trial, but if you make the end-game trial rewards available without ever running the end-game trials, then they aren't really rewards.
I like that there are things in the game that you can't have at level 1. |
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Why not? You need them NOW!
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Originally Posted by Zandock
I don't have T4 powers in all my Incarnate slots yet
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Why not? You need them NOW!
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The only people who make this statement are the ones who need a strawman. Very few people have said they want the rewards instantly. But that's an argument with potential points, so I can see why someone people would rather debate characitures.
For me personally, I preferred the Alpha slot system. It let me go where I wanted and didn't preach "trialtrialtrialtrialtrial" from every pore. But most especially it didn't involve sitting around for 30 to 50% of my play time just waiting for the event to start.
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this. For most all my toons (alt-a-holic) I only have the Alpha unlocked... very few after that are even slotted. The ones I did slot are plenty strong enough for me to allow me to grind solo at x8 to earn Incarnate XP and shards. Plus my play time is severely hampered due to RL... got no time to log in at scheduled iTrial times to be able to jump on a team let alone wait the 30-50 min for the league to form.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
*snipped, cuz I can snip
For me personally, I preferred the Alpha slot system. It let me go where I wanted and didn't preach "trialtrialtrialtrialtrial" from every pore. But most especially it didn't involve sitting around for 30 to 50% of my play time just waiting for the event to start. |
"You sir, have never been in a hammer fight, that much is clear."
-Blast_Chamber
*yeah, I quoted myself.
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Winterminal nailed it. I've sent PMs to the dev saying the same thing nowhere near as eloquently.| Enter the Trials and the content (costumes, auras, etc.) now locked behind their Merits. If you want this stuff, there is only one way to get it, and it is going to take a LOT longer than 30 seconds. The player is left with one option of game-play-mechanic by which to get this new stuff: play the trials. Suddenly, the player's experience has been diminished; to get what they want, they can no longer choose what avenue of game-play they wish to pursue. Thus, you have your "force." |
The fact that these pieces... the auras in particular.... are locked behind incarnate trials SUCKS. They are frequent requests in the costume request threads. People want them and are told, 'Well, you have to play the game this new way rather than the way you like to.'
People who don't ever get to 50 are locked out of them.
People who can't run trials due to computer issues are locked out of them.
People who solo exclusively are locked out of them.
People who will do everything in the game BUT run trials are locked out of them.
PLEASE UNLOCK THESE COSTUME PIECES.
I have the majority of the pieces now, since I don't happen to be in the above categories. I would prefer not to do trials, but it's one of the few places you can get teams these days. However, I would GLADLY pay money to unlock these pieces for Mrs. Moo. I GLADLY buy the other costume expansions, why would I not buy these? Using them to try to tempt players into content they don't want to do is a losing proposition. You're missing out on revenue, NCSoft.
Saying, "well, this is the way the game is played now, so you better get used to it," is not particularly helpful, Golden Girl. It's kinda insulting and belittling.
again, I have to say... what if they are offered in the Paragon Store? That's a big "what if", but if they were wouldn't that change the tune?
"You sir, have never been in a hammer fight, that much is clear."
-Blast_Chamber
*yeah, I quoted myself.
Are you all aware that one of the Trial reward ideas the devs are kicking around is to tie special new costume parts to completing certain Trials, or certain parts of a Trial?
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
I play the trials occasionally and enjoy them as something to do in addition to my normal game play. That being said there are some reasonable criticisms of the trial system that seem to get buried under the doom crying, strawmen, and we have to have end game to increase status posts being spammed to the boards. This style of gaming doesn't appeal to everyone and that's expected and OK. Diversity of play is excellent when the content supports it and CoH mostly does. However there are some serious technical issues with CoH that these new raids exacerbate and are a cause for concern. Firstly latency issues are a problem in some areas of trials and normal game. My understanding is that technical upgrades are ideally going to improve our experience in this area and i sincerely hope this is so. I also participate in MS and Hami raids and would love to see any improvement in this area.
Client crashes is something I've experienced a couple of times and have run into with other league mates in nearly every run. Players cannot enjoy the trials unless they are able to actually play them. For me personally this has really improved but I still see chatter and teammate warnings about this issue.
Visual Fx spam is a nightmare. I had no idea that we received warnings before being sequestered as I couldn't see the warnings. I found out about the warnings from reading the forums. I personally cannot keep track of the blue instructions, league chat, team chat etc. and play. It's too much info for me to process at once. I just learned to do the trials from reading posts about successful runs. The Fx need to be looked at with an editing eye IMHO. The newer stuff is great and has some obvious and clean design and I would say it's time to retire some of the older effects that you can't differentiate from all the visual noise anyway. Even scaling down effects wouldn't necessarily help as there seems to be effects for every game action we take.
you mean like the shoulder pieces you get for completing requirements for Taskforce Commander?... got no problem with them locking content behind other content... been playing for over 5 years and still don't have those damn pieces on any of my toons.
"You sir, have never been in a hammer fight, that much is clear."
-Blast_Chamber
*yeah, I quoted myself.
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Golden Girl? Strawman? Inconceivable!
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
The only people who make this statement are the ones who need a strawman. Very few people have said they want the rewards instantly. But that's an argument with potential points, so I can see why someone people would rather debate characitures.
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Raids are also a selling feature for the VIP option, and a lot of the F2P people will find them an attractive idea.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Same can be said about badge collecting by many players who hated the thought of PvP and still to this day hate PvP. But the devs added badges into the PvP zones and yet many people complained they were forced to enter and PvP to get badges, but look at it now, everything seems to have worked out.|
Originally Posted by Winterminal
Enter the Trials and the content (costumes, auras, etc.) now locked behind their Merits. If you want this stuff, there is only one way to get it, and it is going to take a LOT longer than 30 seconds. The player is left with one option of game-play-mechanic by which to get this new stuff: play the trials. Suddenly, the player's experience has been diminished; to get what they want, they can no longer choose what avenue of game-play they wish to pursue. Thus, you have your "force."
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If you want the rewards, then do the trials, you want the badges then enter a PvP zone, plain and simple. If you don't like the fact you need to do these things to get the rewards, then by all means don't do it.
Hell at least with the Incarnate rewards you have another path you can travel to get the rewards. When the badges were brought to PvP there was no other path for obtaining them
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As a former player of a non-Blizzard fantasy MMO, I can live with this, as long as the challenge and the reward make sense to be linked to one another. In that game, there were a number of pieces of gear that were highly challenging to collect, that were rewards for lore specific reasons. Sneak through the Temple of the ultra scary tadpole people, beat up their High Shaman, get his nifty gloves of Summing Great Spirits.|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Are you all aware that one of the Trial reward ideas the devs are kicking around is to tie special new costume parts to completing certain Trials, or certain parts of a Trial?
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In City of Heroes, we have similar rewards. The Atlas Medallion, for example: learn the history of Atlas, visit significant locations from his career, defeat his signature enemies, receive some fraction of his power in the form of a 5% Endurance boost. Someone in the early dev team was clearly a Marvel Family fan, but the connection between challenge and reward is clearly there.
So if say, in the Keyes trial, the league all gets the Anti-Matter helmet costume piece for achieving the Doesn't matter badge, perfect. I will likely never get it (as I think that badge is insane), but I cannot argue that there is no logical connection between the two.
However, what we've gotten here isn't that connected. I have travelled to faraway dimensions, battled godlike foes, held madmen in check and wrecked their war apparatus, and now I get... fairy glitter? A sword chest emblem? The ability to lay on the floor? These have no connection to the challenge, and should be reconsidered.
Ok, wow. I just made the post and went to do some stuff. Let me address the stuff I've sen one by one.
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Originally Posted by McCharraigin
Thanks Winterminal.
You summed it up nicely. Lisa. |
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Originally Posted by Winterminal
Hi Pacur!
To quickly address the "it's becoming a raiding game!" concern: this stems from the fact that currently, if only temporarily, most people are playing the trials exclusively. So for the people who have no interest in the trials, and used to have no problem finding teammates for the rest of the content in the game, it looks like the only place to find teammates is on the trials (raids). Thus, the sentiment of "Raid Takeover." To address the above quote: I dislike the word "force" because it implies a much more aggressive tone. But look at it this way: this half-issue brought costume pieces, emotes, costume change emotes, auras, and path auras into the game, many of which are very cool and desirable. But the one way of obtaining these options is with Incarnate Merits. Yes, if people want to play other content and simply convert Shards to Threads for their abilities, there is a way to do that (though it is far from a "fair" alternative, still taking far too long, and having been made only slightly better with the lowered inf. costs). Yes, if people want to gain Astral Merits a different way than the trials, they can run Apex and Tin Mage (again, I don't see that as a "fair" alternative, but it does exist). However, the one way of obtaining Empyrean Merits is through the Trials. So if anyone wants any of the costume change emotes, path auras, or Radiance Ascension costume pieces, they are "forced" to do the trials, meaning that there simply is no other alternative means of acquisition. Before now, the most comparably similar situations were Vanguard costume pieces (obviously prior to the loyalty reward) and Booster Packs. Vanguard Merits (necessary for the costume pieces) require killing a specific type of enemy, but you could do that in multiple places including a large raid, a Task Force, instanced missions, and simple street sweeping. So one could go about acquiring Vanguard Merits whatever way they saw fit and could end up getting the pieces they wanted for a certain character. True, some methods will give you Merits quicker than others, but at the end of the day, you are left with Vanguard Merits, the means with which to purchase Vanguard pieces; no conversion required. Booster Packs cost money, but were instantaneous transactions. For many people, this was a logical transition: "I pay (about) $15 per month, and I get access to a game, plus a bunch of new content (cosmetic and game-play) every couple of months. If I shell out an extra $10 one time, I can get access to even more stuff."Granted, those who wanted the stuff were "forced" to shell out that $10, but once they did, that was it, a 30 second transaction and they were done. As they were already paying money for this game, shelling out a little extra dough to outfit their characters with new stuff seemed perfectly justified. It only enhanced their experience. Enter the Trials and the content (costumes, auras, etc.) now locked behind their Merits. If you want this stuff, there is only one way to get it, and it is going to take a LOT longer than 30 seconds. The player is left with one option of game-play-mechanic by which to get this new stuff: play the trials. Suddenly, the player's experience has been diminished; to get what they want, they can no longer choose what avenue of game-play they wish to pursue. Thus, you have your "force." |
Consider: The whole system is designated as "Incarnate" and upon doing the very first Incarnate arc, you are told (for those who just skipped the text on this part, this may be new) basically that you are going to be as powerful as Statesman or Recluse, and potentially even more powerful in the long run.
So, everyone who gains the incarnate power is essentially getting unlimited power, little at first, and then greater and greater amounts. The costumes themselves are called Ascended (and variations thereof), which in itself implies a state of higher being, requiring great effort (a trial) to achieve.
I would side with you, certainly, if anything that was available through Empyrian merits (since we both agree that you can get Astral merits through non-trial means) was game-changing such as powers, abilities, or anything like that, BUT it is only costumes and visual effects as it were that are being unlocked, so I do not view this is unfair.
TLDR for this section: Costumes don't change gameplay, you can get everything else with non-empyrian stuff. Also, the new costumes and auras are designed to reward heroes and villains who are on the incarnate path, and therefore, the best-looking ones signify an accumulation of power, and are available only through E-merits.
To address your other concern, that people are playing trials exclusively, I find that it is simply not true. Even on generally low-population servers such as mine, there are plenty of task and strike forces running every day, and people announce if they have interesting missions, if people want to join them. I even managed to run ALL four Shadow Shard Taskforces in ONE day about 2-3 weeks ago (I am not making this up, will post proof if necessary), only one of which was planned, and I was able to find people to run it with me, even though they (the TFs) are the least-popular int he game.
TLDR for this section: If you try, you can find people to run even the most time consuming TFs with you.
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You don't get the badges for completing them without running them, what makes costume pieces any different?|
Originally Posted by AmazingMOO
People who don't ever get to 50 are locked out of them.
People who can't run trials due to computer issues are locked out of them. People who solo exclusively are locked out of them. People who will do everything in the game BUT run trials are locked out of them. PLEASE UNLOCK THESE COSTUME PIECES. |
It's a costume piece. Nothing about it makes it a must have. Nothing at all. It's simply a reward for a certain piece of content. Really shouldn't be that big of a deal.
Furthermore, there are avenues to astral merits outside of trials, so should be even less of a big deal.
I, personally, fail to see the problem.
Edit: I forgot to mention there is a flaw in your first complaint; Incarnate costume pieces can only be worn by lvl 50s.
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Ascension Armor Ascension Armor represents the pinnacle of becoming an Incarnate. Each costume piece you purchase is unlocked account-wide in exchange for Astral or Empyrean merits but it can only worn by a character that has achieved Level 50. |
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Another nice summary.|
Originally Posted by Seschat
However, what we've gotten here isn't that connected. I have travelled to faraway dimensions, battled godlike foes, held madmen in check and wrecked their war apparatus, and now I get... fairy glitter? A sword chest emblem? The ability to lay on the floor? These have no connection to the challenge, and should be reconsidered.
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Positron mentioned that the Ascension armor in particular was developed as a reward for Incarnate Content.
Fairy Glitter? Pixels? Rainbow aura? These were designed as a reward for incarnate content? I have a very hard time believing this. I'd love to hear a redname say, 'Oh, those are available from the incarnate system now, but will soon be available some other way.'
These are VERY generic things. Like you said, the Anti-Matter helmet belongs in the incarnate awards. These things belong in a super booster or free content.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Winterterminal summed it up perfectly. I only have one thing to add: I am beyond sick of people trying to act like not enjoying this incarnate glurge is the fault of the player for being too selfish and wanting the rewards too much.
It is not selfish or gluttonous to expect the path to advancement to also be fun. The only thing stopping me from incarnating my characters at this point isn't "challenge." It is how insanely tedious this system is. And then on top of that they've thrown costumes, emotes and auras behind this wall of absolute, endless tedium. We have great developers, a good game, decent enough missions, and a friendly playerbase, but I have never hated a system in this game as much as this one. Incarnate is the new PVP. |
I'm sorry, but Incarnates are not the new PvP. PvP has its own rewards, zones, it does not give you any new powers. Yes, it has enhancement built specifically for PvP.
I could go on and on, but I think you get my point.
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Costumes are probably the single biggest draw to City of Heroes. What's 'must have' for a person who wants to power up is meaningless to a person who wants to create a heroic identity. |
Originally Posted by MayorOfAngrytown
It's a costume piece. Nothing about it makes it a must have. Nothing at all. It's simply a reward for a certain piece of content. Really shouldn't be that big of a deal.
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Likewise what's not important to you, costume pieces, are indeed a 'must have' for getting new players into the game and retaining them.
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It's not random. It occurs every 30 seconds, and it (if Antimatter is not damaged) starts at about half of a character's health. If you die, and go to hospital, you can stock up on Respites, and once you get hit, pop a couple, and boom, you're back to full health. Or, you can use a self-heal or have someone heal you.|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I'm not enjoying Keyes because of the random excessive damage that we can incur when we don't even do anything wrong. It would be one thing if it was like, "hey you touched that thing that kills you, now you're dead!" but this has "oh you're running back from the hospital, you didn't aggro anything, you're just trying to catch up with your league mates... But that's ok. You're still dead."
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The trial is designed to be challenging. Or rather, it is challenging now. Once, I remember everyone was complaining when the very first (Terra Volta) trial was too hard. now, its super boring.
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Originally Posted by srmalloy
This, and the way the random damage pulses looks to encourage the same "mass up under the healing umbrella" pseudo-tactic that was the staple of the original version of the Hamidon raids.
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My understanding is that zone-PVP is pretty much dead and that the PVP that interested players and rednames alike get behind is arena PVP.|
Originally Posted by Beef_Cake
Same can be said about badge collecting by many players who hated the thought of PvP and still to this day hate PvP. But the devs added badges into the PvP zones and yet many people complained they were forced to enter and PvP to get badges, but look at it now, everything seems to have worked out.
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It didn't work out because it was forced to. It was worked out because it was neglected until it didn't matter any more.
If trials are neglected until they no longer matter this stuff will simply be gone. Maybe we'll be lucky and they'll add another route to get it in a few more issues. How long was it between the time they added PVP-os and the time they made them earnable with alignment merits? I'd certainly hate to wait that long.
Thank you for starting a thread with the intent of being rational all around
Though doomcrying like this, and the inevitable trollbaiting, seems to be par around here when something new happens.
I'm one of those ornery fence-sitters when it comes to stuff like this. I like the trials too, to a point. However I don't have near as much online time as I would like, and they can take a long time to organize and get folks for, much less doing them. The former can take almost as much time, if not more, than the latter. Granted once you get a good league going it doesn't take nearly as long but by the time that happens I've only run one or two trials and have to log. That or I'm running with my SG mates, who are long since sick of the trials even before some of them have unlocked all the powers. I'm not going to ditch out on my friends just to progress my character.
Which brings me around to my point.
The biggest complaint I've seen that I empathize with is that these trials are the only way to (reasonably) get a lot of the neat stuff unlocked. Not even game-enhancing stuff, the 'shinies'. I had enough of the merits saved up to unlock everything but the Emperian Incarnate armor and the costume change emotes. I honestly would have liked to spent those merits on actually finishing up my main hero and villain's (the only ones I have done trials with at this point) Incarnate stuff. However, I wanted the costume stuff more sooo...
I don't think anyone wishes the trials removed from the game. If they do, that's unreasonable. I just think folks want more options to reasonably gain similar rewards through some kind of solo/small team route as well. I know I'd really like them. I would like to build on my character's incarnate abilities even when I don't have the time to get into and do trials as well, which is more often than not.
"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.