Giving the Players what they want: Solo Incarnate Content
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-06-30 10:53 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Classic Bait and Switch tactics.|
Originally Posted by Serva_Obscura
I would like to see a non-team incarnate progression path that takes under quadruple the total time team-based progress takes. I'm doing the trial currently but I rarely enjoy it. The current progression path is somewhere in the region of 50:1 solo time:team time ratio
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When the Alpha slot was first introduced in the Mender Ramiel trial, it seemed like the devs were starting on the right path towards creating Solo capable Incarnate content. The Bait was cast on to the waters.
Then, for some unknown reason, came the big Switch. WST in I19.5 then Trials and more Trials in 20 and 20.5. Along with those all the new currencies were introduced and the shards introduced in I19 were suddenly irrelevant and replaced. There was a deliberate decision to force players into big group content by making the solo path totally untenable.
Frankly, I think the switch was made in order to cut costs and development times. Programming six single location trials has got to be less expensive and more doable in a short amount of time than creating the many Mender Ramiel-like story arcs that would be necessary to fulfill the demands of the Solo path. Or at least in the dev minds, that's the way I'm guessing they saw it.
This whole Incarnate thing started out going in one direction then abruptly changed and went another.
If it were available, most players would probably go the solo/small team path for several reasons:
1. Immensely less lag and fewer DC's;
2. Easier and quicker to form up and start;
3. More likely to fit the missions into shorter time frames;
4. Enjoy Battles in which every character's participation will make the difference between success and failure.
But, the devs don't seem to want this. Someone up there has this egotistical grand vision of epic battles with hundreds of FX effects bursting out all over the screen accompanied by the din of weapons; shouts; explosions and fighting. With such a show going on they fail to realize what a P.I.T.A. it is to participate in it...and players tolerate it simply because the rewards are too tempting to resist.
I sincerely wish they would get back to the Soloable path they started with Mender Ramiel. It is doable. It is desired by much of the player base. It would find a place in most every player's routine with far fewer problems and complaints.
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I can't say I disagree with people wanting a faster solo/small team path to the Incarnate abilities, but you've got your time scales wrong here. First of all, Issue 20, the issue that brought iTrials and Judgement, Interface, Lore and Destiny slots, has been out for less than three months.|
Originally Posted by AmazingMOO
Right now, there is a significant demand for solo Incarnate Content that can be completed on a schedule that at least gives a fraction of the progression offered by trials.
Right now, that is not in the game, despite the fact that it has been repeatedly requested by a wide array of players from before day one of the introduction of the incarnate system. It's been six, nearly seven MONTHS since the live introduction of the Incarnate system. |
Development doesn't happen overnight. And the new Keyes trial (and the upcoming Devouring Earth Cavern trial scheduled for i21) have certainly been in development since long before Issue 20 actually launched, and probably before i19 arrived and brought us the original Alpha slot.
As for the Alpha slot, unless you are absolutely unwilling to join a team for any reason, you can craft a Tier 3 boost in just a few days. Tier 4, by design, will easily take four weeks or longer. Between shards dropping from any even-level or higher enemy (even while exemped) that was given to us with the relase of i20, and the Notices we get for Weekly Strike Targets as of i19.5, as long as you're willing to do ONE TF--not trial--per week and some extra playing on the side, you can have your ultimate Alpha reward in about a month.
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| If not, why has there been such a huge delay on this? A number of fairly simple solutions requiring minimal development work have been suggested. Are any of these under consideration? Is there any consideration at all being given to this very common player want? |
When will it be out? My money is on Issue 23. If they really want to surprise me, then Issue 22. Prior to that, all you're going to see is more of the same: a couple new trials, further adjustments to the cost of converting the necessary salvage, and if we're really lucky, an increase to the drop rate of Incarnate Shards.
But let me reintroduce you to the history of CoH:
Q: How long was it before Heroes got fast-paced repeatable content like the Villains did with their newspaper missions?
A: We got police radio missions thirteen months later.
Q: How long did it take for day-one veterans to be able to earn the Isolator badge, since badges weren't introduced until Issue 2 (Sept 2004)?
A: Isolator was reintroduced for defeating 100 Contaminated in the Recluse's Victory PVP zone in June 2006, nearly two years later. They spawned on a random timer at a rate of one per 30-120 minutes, and it took over two weeks to earn it doing nothing but camping the tram station with every moment of my free time. (It was later determined that this was a "**** move" and easier access was given in Issue 11, an additional 14 months later.)
Q: When was side-switching, a feature originally intended to be in City of Villains, finally implemented?
A: In the Going Rogue expansion, almost five years after the release of CoV.
The point is, you'll get your access. But the development team has a schedule that they've been working on, and it wasn't made apparent until the February/March timeframe that a large subsection of the population (though I doubt a majority) did not want to partake in the trials.
You'll get what you want, but there are other things on the timetable that are going to come out first, and you'll either need to accept that or move on. I'm not saying "Shut up or GTFO!" and I'm certainly not saying you shouldn't make your wishes known... but you have to understand that it's not going to happen overnight.
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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I think Moo's frustration is correct, and let me 'splain why.
it's not the argument over which group of end game players has the numeric edge, solo or team. It's that when this end game content launched, the devs made a point of specifying that solo'able end game content was intended from the very beginning. So whether they worked on the raids for 6 or 7 months, or 6 or 7 years, the point is that they have been planning solo content for it since inception. And why the solo content is lagging behind is causing alot of folks alot of grief, it would have been alot easier to swallow if the concept of end game solo content hadn't been initially championed by the devs, and they had just told us "end game = massive raids", then we would have gotten what was promised and would have not had unfulfilled expectations.
so, though i enjoy the raids sometimes, and i split my time between solo and team play, i too am anxiously awaiting the promised solo incarnate content. I'm not quite at the point of an angry forum rant, but i must side with the OP on this one, don't promise what you aren't going to deliver, especially to a playerbase of a MMO, much better to throw solo content in later, without ever mentioning it, and make it an unexpected surprise.
Oh yeah, that was the time that girl got her whatchamacallit stuck in that guys dooblickitz and then what his name did that thing with the lizards and it cleared right up.
screw your joke, i want "FREEM"
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I think that this post exemplifies what most people* would like to see in the future of the Incarnate system.|
Originally Posted by Sermon
I love the raids, but I would also like to run them less often than I currently do. Having story arcs and repeatably incarnate content that I could run, just me and my friends, would please me greatly.
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*who aren't Bill and his crazy max-level-AV-solo-fighting antics. And I don't necessarily mean that as an insult, Bill--what you can do with a Claws Scrapper certainly impresses me. But you're part of an extraordinarily tiny minority in the pool of CoH players.
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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I'm expecting it to take over 12 months from the first looking into it before any redname confirmation that something is happening.
In ideal world, I would like to see 1 solostyle I arc for every 4 or 5 trials.
It would be great if the upcoming sig. arcs grant I rewards.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
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And, just as likely, a lot of them won't. |
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
It's also important to remember that there's going to be an influx of new players this year, and a lot of them will have certain expectations about what an MMO endgame system should be like.
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The new low level Atlas Sewer Trial will help condition them |
Originally Posted by Flarstux
And, just as likely, a lot of them won't.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I'm sure it will be an Enriche-ing experience! |
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The new low level Atlas Sewer Trial will help condition them
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LINKS PLEASE! As of right now I've seen ZERO word from the devs that non-trial Incarnates content is coming. If you have evidence to the contrary, point it out so that people can get back to doing something more productive.|
Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser
The devs have promised future solo incarnate content and unless we're all just ignoring reality, we know that development takes time.
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| But so far this thread I've seen you hand wave any and all evidence that there are actual people who like the trials as faulty evidence because it gets in the way of what you want. |
This is why one should READ posts instead of REACTING to them.
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"Signature story arc =|= Incarnate story arc"
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Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser
Yeah, it's not like the devs have promised soloable incarnate content in the future and have already announced a system of MONTHLY signature story arcs that promise to be more epic than the current in-game story arcs, giving us more story arcs in one calendar year than we've had in years.
Clearly, the devs have ignored solo players and we must spam the forums about it! |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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Okay, let me turn your level 1 loose on a +4x8 with bosses and AVs mission for a level 50 player.|
Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser
Level ranges mean absolutely nothing at this point in City of Heroes.
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Stop spouting nonsense or I shall mock you further!
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| And all content drops shards. While the signature system has not been tied to the incarnate system, the devs have been openly vocal that they heard the call for solo incarnate content and it is in the works. Veruca Salt'ing it up and demanding it NOA is unrealistic. |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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Probably the same thing people who don't like the trials are doing.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
What did your static team do about the solo-only missions in Praetoria?
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They didn't run them.
What about this? Base difficulty for an Incarnate mission is the equivalent of:
Solo = +0x4
2 Players = +0x6
3 Players = +1x8
4 Players = +1x10
5 Players = +2x12
6 Players = +2x14
7 Players = +3x16
8 Players = +3x18
Difficulty shifts in the + factor run from there (+4 on a an 8 player mission results in +7's (doable but VERY ****ING PAINFUL)). The multiplier stops working once the x value rises above x8 (to prevent enemy horde farming), but the team multiplier always supersedes the difficulty multiplier.
Also, possibly only when solo, the aggro cap is DOUBLED. No relying on the inaction of massed mobs standing around to keep you safe. Let's see 32 enemies taking a whack at someone. The law of averages can be a ***** even to someone defense-capped.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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While the dev team is good, they're NOT infallible (look at the debacle AE has become). This means that, on occasion, their data mining seems to be telling them something incorrect (or they're just misreading the data).|
Originally Posted by Furio
Or, tell the avalanche to continue heading down the slope, and claim responsibility when it does just that.
Seriously. Look at the track record of the dev team, and tell me you honestly don't think there's damn good odds that this concern is already being addressed internally. |
But it's a case of "ask often, get often" and "don't ask, don't get" and "squeaky wheel gets the oil".
This worked for the base builder crew when the devs announced, initially, that base builders would have to completely tear apart their bases to reclaim prestige when the new prestige discounts went into effect.
We know the devs aren't stupid. But they ARE human. And a game developer can have CRS just the same as anyone else. This is to keep the issue up and in the spotlight until a CONFIRMED fix is in the pipeline.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Trials and Raids aren't my thing. I played that one fantasy game, and raided that molten middle place WAY too much. Have I done the trials? Yes, just to make sure they weren't my cup of tea. I am sure people have fun with them, as I see them forming at 3am CST on the weekends. Would I love to see a more small team/Solo option for getting Incarnate stuff? Heck yes. I have 3 50's that have unlocked the Alpha. Just getting the Tier 4 on that was almost more than I am willing to do.
I like getting the shiny new thingy just like everyone else, but I am not willing to do the same thing day in, day out to get it. Issue 20 came out, and I made a new character. 20.5 came out, and I am still playing my level 26 corrupter. That character will hit 50, and I will probably make another new character.
More options = Good. Less options = BAD!
Now, can we get more posts about all the cool costumes that NPCs are getting that players aren't?
No one pays attention to me, cause I listen to the voices in my head.
Well it seems to me this thread is going down the path of :
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAA AAAAAAA AAAAAA AAA A AA AAAAAAAAAAAA AAA AAA AAAAAA A AAAAAA AAAAA aaa Aaaaaa AAAA".
"A Aa aAAAAAaaA Aaaaa AAAAA aaaa AAAAAAAA aaaa Aaa Aa"
Or maybe these are just how my sleeping pills are making it seem.
I honestly don't need epic story arcs for solo incarnate progression. Just give me a mission system similar to what Cimerora has and let me run generic missions that reward iXP. And maybe, just maybe, throw in a astral mertis for every 3 or so missions completed? Make Prometheus or one of the Ouroboros guys the contact and wham, problem solved.
I don't think it's asking for much to not want to run giant 24-man trials to unlock rewards. Sometimes you just want to log on and move at your own steady pace.
- Im Not Talking Fast, You're Just Listening Slow.
- To Each His Own
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The fact that people are doing trials does not prove that they want to do trials. It only proves that they want the things that doing trials provide, and are willing to put up with trials in order to get those things.|
Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser
The "Players want solo content, not raids" mentality is proven false every single night in Pocket D and RWZ by the masses lining up to still do Lambda and BAFs as well as Keyes.
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Trials are the only viable option for getting enough threads and Astral and Empyrean merits.
Personally, I've never longed to be one of two dozen players hammering away on a single AV like a small army of woodpeckers trying to take down a polar bear. Where there are so many simultaneous graphics effects that the screen is essentially blank and I cannot see any of the targets I'm attacking, except via the targeting reticle.
I've never longed to chase down fleeing mobs that don't even bother to defend themselves, while the server is so overloaded that my powers all recharge two or three times more slowly, making me waste half my time trying to activate powers that the client thinks are recharged but the server does not.
I've never longed to lead an AV around by the nose while being automatically zapped for half my hit points twice a minute.
I realize that games have to stretch the suspension of disbelief here and there, but Antimatter in Keyes is just too colossally stupid. The entire conceit for this trial is preposterous. There's nothing about the trial that I find likable, interesting, or fun. It is simply tedious, repetitive, silly, and annoying.
"The players" don't want any one particular thing. They don't want to do just trials, or just solo play, or just TFs, or Hamidon, or mothership raids, or just tip missions. They want a variety of things, but most of all they want things to improve their character's abilities and costumes. They will do the things that will most efficiently get them those things. And the only serious option for incarnate content we have now is trials.
I do sympathize with the devs' goals with trials. If they provide a solo or small team path that's just as efficient for incarnate rewards, no one will want to do big trials. Because, no matter how you slice it, it always takes longer to get 8 or 16 or 24 people to do something than it does to get 1 or 2 or 4 people to do something. And startup times for TFs and trials are often as long as doing the content itself, depending on server and time of day.
Why do the devs want to force people to run trials and TFs? I'm guessing because they want us to interact with each other more. Large trials require that we seek each other out. I'm guessing they want to counter the idea that CoH is a ghost town, where everyone is running solo in instances.
I wouldn't find trials so onerous if they ran with 8-12 players. I've done BAFs with just 12 and they're much more fun. But people almost always run with full leagues. Which makes them take much longer to form and much more painful to run with all the server-side lag.
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Yeah, that @#$% has got to stop. I don't have too many lag issues with trials outside this one particular thing. Please fix this somehow. |
Originally Posted by Rodion
I've never longed to chase down fleeing mobs that don't even bother to defend themselves, while the server is so overloaded that my powers all recharge two or three times more slowly, making me waste half my time trying to activate powers that the client thinks are recharged but the server does not.
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For the record, I like the trials, but I don't feel the need to run them all every time I sit down to play. I also solo most of the time, if only because it lets me pick what I want to do more easily. Still, team content, especially where I have to move around, trigger self heals, watch for clueless team-mates not paying attention to their Seq warnings (seriously, still people?), and all the other so called "false difficulty" stuff is fun as well.
Having said that, this is another one where I don't see the big deal in adding very difficult soloable iContent. Make them difficult in mob size and extraneous mechanics. All of them have to have the potential for failure, just like the trials. Empy merit on a timer for finishing the arc (not single solo mission, I mean really) and astrals for certain objectives. Same reward tables.*
No reason it couldn't be balanced out.
* - Mark my words, these missions come about, there will be threads about how the reward tables are broken, and why in the name of <insert> does <poster's name here>'s omfgwtfbbq <AT> get <reward roll that is not deemed worthy of perception of performance>.
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Originally Posted by Rowdy
Sometimes you just want to log on and move at your own steady pace.
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I am almost tempted to sig this.
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friggin stupid more like. Just because people ARE in pocket D doing the trials does NOT somehow mean they dont want solo incarnate progression. It just means they are resigned to the fact there is NO reasonable solo way to advance their characters.
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Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser
You might get a greater response if your argument was based in reality.
The "Players want solo content, not raids" mentality is proven false every single night in Pocket D and RWZ by the masses lining up to still do Lambda and BAFs as well as Keyes. The "This game has become a raiding game" mentality is being proven false by issues including non-raiding content as well. Even the issue that gave us the first raids included Mortimer SFs and Sutter TFs. We already know with VIP membership we get a signature story arc every month... which is more solo-able content than we ever got with issues that may have included 2-3 of them after 8 months of development. And finally, maybe this whole anti-raid outcry would look a little better if it were isolated to one place. Spreading it out amongst dozens of threads just makes it plainly obvious that the outcry is just being magnified through quantity of spammed rants by a handful of people. |
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All I wanted to say about this.
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Originally Posted by Sermon
I love the raids, but I would also like to run them less often than I currently do. Having story arcs and repeatably incarnate content that I could run, just me and my friends, would please me greatly.
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Character index
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It's funny how you see this kind of post for any and every subject of debate.|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
I don't need a citation when I can observe for myself. Currently, the most vocal people on this forum are those that are soloers or players disgruntled with the incarnate trial emphasis. They tend to come to these forums for their socializing, and play the game predominately alone and in an instance. You would probably fit this archetype, Bill Z.
The people that enjoy iTrials and teaming are out there playing the game, using global channels, and forming Super Groups and Leagues. They only come to these forums for information and occasional participation. I have rarely if ever heard players call for solo content in the busiest global chat channels in the game, but it is a daily event on these forums with a string of recycled names leading the charge. If the forums were emblematic of the broader player base, at least with regards to desired solo content, I should hear more than a ping while playing the game. |
We need to strike all specific references to the subject matter and copy and paste it any time more than one forum member posts the same feedback.
@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
Oh, and Moo...
I would like alternate options for gaining incarnate rewards as much as anyone... However, your original post here is a bit off the mark...
In referring to 6-7 months as a HUGE amount of development time and making the case that it's way too long and all of that.
I understand where you're coming from, but, unfortunately, it's going to take some time.
Again... I wish it was part of their design plan to include such options before it ever went live.
Unfortunately, it wasn't. And it's going to take a bit before they get to it.
I don't think that means we shouldn't ask for it and let them know that we want it ASAP.
I just don't think it is realistic to expect actual solo content to have been designed and created for it yet.
They have plans that go pretty far ahead into the future and it is very rare that they can add new things in in such a short amount of time.
The best reasoning I've heard that satisfies me about not getting solo and small team Incarnate content right off the bat was due to the Devs finding the right balances and realities of what these powers will do for such content... The big multi-team content is easier for them to work out and then they can scale things down from there.
Something like that, anyway...
Still... I definitely want to see this happen soon... i just think "soon" takes a bit longer than you may be hoping.
Just remember that I really (really!!!!) want to see some options other than the trials as well.
I always thought that the "endgame content" was going to encompass all aspects of play... Not just large trials. I hope that, one day, it will!
I thought that the Alpha Slot was just the beginning for how ingeniously they were tying it all into all content throughout the game.
I thought it was going to go further across existing and new content of all types.
@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
The argument that "People do raids, therefore people WANT to do raids," aside from being a logical fallacy of a pretty obvious nature, is slowly being proved wrong by the many people who are starting to make the counter-argument of "I like to team and I like raids, but I'm getting burned out and I want something else."
What people want is more content. I don't know what Paragon Studios' deal is, but the rate at which they've produced content is somewhere between slow and "mid-air stall." In the past year, we've gotten all of three Trials, two TFs and two arcs, and I21 is promising a new zone that's all of 6 levels in range - 20-26. I don't know if they're holding content back to sell with Freedom or if 3/4 of the studio are working on Freedom content or if they just fired everybody, but I've not seen content introduction this slow during the dark days of the Post-CoV 15.
When Cryptic Studios sold the City of Heroes franchise to NCsoft, along with their entire City of Heroes team, I could tangibly feel the re-investment. Suddenly, there were no more talks of "This would take too much work." or "We don't have the manpower to do that." The studio hired new people, stepped on the gas and started not just releasing "biggest bang for the buck" additions, but actually releasing what I call "luxuries" - additions that make the game better but aren't always Issue showpieces or likely to score high on banner ads. We got several ATs revisited and - in my opinion - fixed up, we saw power customization, we saw lots of things of this nature. Even if you didn't like one particular aspect of a new Issue, there was always something else interesting for you.
These days it feels like we're back down to 15 people working on the game, picking only the highest-value targets, focusing on only one thing and working as though directed by marketing, rather than good game design. The thing is, what people want is raids AND solo content, and there's no reason that it has to be JUST one or the other. We paid Paragon Studios a significant amount of money recently - $20 for an expansion, $10 for the Booster that came with it, another $10 for the Animal Booster, another $10 for the Steampunk Booster. They should have had the money to work on more than one raid per Issue, so it becomes a question of what, exactly, it is that I'm paying for. Freedom, though, is the most likely answer.
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If you think that what the players want is "raids, raids and more raids," you are provably wrong. Even the people who want raids are starting to ask for other things as well, and more raids won't alleviate these desires. If we keep seeing mostly just new raids, this will only get worse and those browbeating fans of practically anything else will just lose more of their support.
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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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Be well, people of CoH.