News from PAX
Given the way this game's population has always done things, I'm a little surprised that a solo incarnate path would have been a hindsight thing.
I'm not sure that it matters, though. If Freedom is hugely successful, then it will be partly because we're getting an influx of players from other games where constant end-game raiding is the standard way of doing things. They'll not only be fine with it - they'll expect it as the accepted way of doing things.
We who are here now will slowly become the minority in expecting something different.
Speaking of "historically accurate": I thought it might be interesting to show how Red Sonja looked in her first appearance. The artists changed her up as time went on.
![](http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/4/11680-2471-13003-1-conan-the-barbarian_super.jpg)
Give me those boots and that "bottoms with skin" option as leather/animal skins and I'm happy. I wouldn't even mind that chainmail shirt, really, but as we've seen it can already be approximated pretty well.
I suspect that the real reason we have Sexy Barbarian is that it was an easy way of leveraging existing assets. I suppose there's nothing to really say to that except "here's hoping that Freedom is wildly successful so that they can double or triple the development budget/staff".
Otherwise the Trails will shrivel up and die, and those people who (gasp) like them will never get a chance to run them.
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The solo path Incarnate stuff is later. By the time you guys really pushed to having us include it, 21 was already locked down, content-wise.
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Looking at the list of new things with Freedom, I know I, at least, will be busy for about a year before I need anything else.
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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If Trials would shrivel up because players were given an alternate yet equal way of getting the rewards they offer, maybe that's an indication that the majority of people don't like Trials.
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Team content needs more organizing, so it gives better rewards.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
If the only reason people will run something is it's the only way to get a reward, you make that to rethink how you are doing them. If they were fun, people would do them anyway.
This is what I think is wrong with most raid systems, honestly, doing them are not really fun. |
What in this game do you repeat ad-nausea just for the fun of it? Even having steak everyday gets old. In this game people are running multiple characters through the same content. To say they would do it without the reward is just not reality.
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
For any OCR folks monitoring this thread for feedback to pass on devs (the art team, in this case), in order to avoid the sorts of complaints that are showing up here, I recommend keeping in what I call the "Rule of Clothing" in modern, Western society, the one that has produced most of your players: Both "male" and "female" styles of clothing exist. Men may wear the "male" style, while women may wear either "male" or "female" styles. (For the purposes of this game, I'd even extend the definition of "clothing" to cover things like musculature, size, and shape.)
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Now, I have a pretty good guess that the actual problem is the art team were working under a mandate to make a unique set for women (for whatever reason that seems to always be the case) and may well simply not bother porting costume pieces between the models as that constitutes extra work. That's the excuse we've been given in the past, at least. It makes some degree of business sense, but if those are going up for sale (and they will be), then I'd say it makes more sense to cram in as much stuff as possible so more people have a reason to buy them.
I have no male barbarians. I doubt I ever will. I have a couple of female barbarians. If I don't find any use for the Barbarian set on any of my Barbarian characters, I will have no reason to buy it.
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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It's simply a bonus being given to players who play the Sig Stories.
The solo path Incarnate stuff is later. By the time you guys really pushed to having us include it, 21 was already locked down, content-wise. |
Also note: Solo Path does not equal "at the same rate as those who do Trials". Those players will ALWAYS advance through the system faster. Otherwise the Trails will shrivel up and die, and those people who (gasp) like them will never get a chance to run them. |
I understand that you want to appeal to as many niches as possible, but when one small niche's desires require you to design a system that expects a large portion of the playerbase who don't enjoy that content to play it anyway, isn't that the point at which you say, "you know, maybe there's a design flaw here, maybe we shouldn't require teams this large"? If I liked <activity X> that required a bunch of other players, but those players didn't like that activity, I wouldn't expect you to design a system that expected them to grudgingly play it with me anyway. That's just weird.
I fully support content like the trials in the game-- the fail conditions, the need to pay attention and coordinate, and the attempt to move away from tank-and-spank. But why did it have to require so many people?
If you scaled the trials down for 4-8 players, then the people who like them wouldn't have trouble finding enough people to run them, and more people may be interested in them. Perhaps that's why I've heard that other MMOs have moved toward smaller raid sizes.
Please try my custom mission arcs!
Legacy of a Rogue (ID 459586, Entry for Dr. Aeon's Third Challenge)
Death for Dollars! (ID 1050)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare (ID 1218)
Win the Past, Own the Future (ID 1429)
I'm not sure that it matters, though. If Freedom is hugely successful, then it will be partly because we're getting an influx of players from other games where constant end-game raiding is the standard way of doing things. They'll not only be fine with it - they'll expect it as the accepted way of doing things.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
If the only reason people will run something is it's the only way to get a reward, you make that to rethink how you are doing them. If they were fun, people would do them anyway.
This is what I think is wrong with most raid systems, honestly, doing them are not really fun. |
Those are facetious examples, but it's still a valid point. Not many people I run across on trials express the abject misery I've seen from people hyperbolizing (is that a word?) on the forums. Part of the fun of the trials is having a whole crapton of people running them. If suddenly half or more of those people went away, it wouldn't be as fun. Not because anything in the trials has inherently changed to make it less fun, but because running them with smaller teams and having to sit there and recruit a lot longer for a trial because it's just easier for everyone to run them solo/everyone is getting the solo rewards anyway means that a lot less people will be running the trials.
I wish that there were some way to keep track in real time of how much total reward is being given out for various activities, and balance them on-the-fly. Provide a solo path for Incarnate stuff, and rig the system so that if everyone starts flocking to getting stuff via the solo options, the rewards for doing it that way go down and the rewards for doing it via trials increase proportionately. I'd like to see the same happen with task forces. If people start flocking to one, its rewards go down and the rewards for the others increase proportionately.
This would effectively remove exploits from the game. If something accidentally went live that, for example, broke the Citadel task force so that it were instantly completable, it wouldn't take very long for the rewards for doing so to become zilch and hover there until it's fixed. It would also effectively let the players decide the work/reward ratio in the game.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
Lol, sure. I wonder why the steampunk rifle is available to SOAs in beta then.
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Yeah I'm gonna have to go with WRONG on this one. I don't know the details of the agreement CoX made with Marvel, DC etc but I am quite sure you are incorrect. I had made a bunch of new toons a few months ago and they all got genericed; the names included: Apocalypse, Longshot, Wildcat, Sentinel, Tombstone etc. So, if you know something I don't, I'd appreciate an update. I was rather choked I had all of these names taken away when they were available for me to take in the first place.
It might help if the devs gave us some info in this area as well. It's not cool to work on a toon for months and then have the name yanked. If we can't use the damn name then don't make it available to us. |
And they didn't "make those names available" - it's far easier to make a list of prohibited names than allowed names. Devs can go and use names like that easier because they can make sure whatever scenario that uses them does not fall afoul of the law.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
Thanks for telling us this, and thanks for both the Sig Stories and working on the "solo path" to Incarnate (I hope it is a "solo and small team path", though, as I'm not much of a soloer, I just don't enjoy huge teams)!
I don't expect the solo path to be at the same rate. However, I'm one of those people that likes the trials for what they are (though I have specific gripes about each one), but I don't enjoy or understand the team size required to run them. I don't understand the decision to design the entire end-game around what you are admitting is a small minority of players. If so few people like raid-style content that they can't sustain it, why was it made that way? |
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
The word "abomination" is public domain. The only way they could get in trouble is if the character himself bears a significant resemblance to Marvel's Abomination. Just from looking at the screenshot.....he doesn't. |
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Did we ever get clarified if the 7-day timer is per arc or per character?
Liberty Server (@enderbean)
Arcs on Live
#1460 Hometown Rivalry
Under your logic, they could take away all rewards in the game and people would still play. After all, if it's fun with the rewards, wouldn't it be just as fun without the rewards? |
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Can you quote someone saying that? Because that hasn't been the complaint. We want the girl costume NOT to be skimpy-corset-skirt-highheels every time a set comes out and/or we'd like to have access to the "male" costume. No one's saying they want realistic pieces.
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I really wish they had picked a color other than blue to show the female version in though. I'm hoping that the fur is optional (like the magic bolero) and that they get the low cut boots. Even 'Witch' I think you can use as a pattern on regular boots if nothing else.
People read novels, watch television, go to the movies and even play traditional board games without "rewards" other than the entertainment they find intrinsic to the experience. No matter what pot of gold you put at the end of your MMO rainbow, if your MMO lacks that quality eventually the dissonance will win out and people will quit.
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"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
And there's the magic balance. Entertainment and reward are integral parts of a good MMO. One cannot support a game without the other. |
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
In short, this is no good. There is no point in grouping when you can max out one or more types of defense via IOs and speed through solo content to get whatever you want. This is just no good. No matter how much you think giving the solo player equal reward, it will never happen. If you have 5 people, 3 of which solo because they are IOd out to the gills, and 2 of which try to group as much as possible, guess who is more likely to quit. Hint, its not the solo'rs. And the loss of those groupers will be felt. The game was always meant to encourage grouping, not trivializing it. Unfortunately, thats exactly what happened.
Thank you for clarifying, but to be honest, you guys never promised us a viable solo path, which is kind of the problem. We were given the standard "we hear your complaints" reply, but you never publicly committed to bringing us one, just that you understood we wanted one.
Again, this is reasonable, but this information could have been made known sooner. We don't get to see the big white board. We don't know where you are in the development cycle. We don't get to see that you shuffled things around to put a solo path into i22 so we can stop going on about it unless you tell us. I feel I have to point something out to you. The above quote, should be a red flag. If Trials would shrivel up because players were given an alternate yet equal way of getting the rewards they offer, maybe that's an indication that the majority of people don't like Trials. You don't have to BRIBE people to do things they want to do, that they enjoy. Because essentially, what you're admitting to is exactly that; bribing people to run content they really wouldn't want to run on its own merit. Now, obviously some people *gasp* love running the trials in and of themselves, and some people surely love to team. But since you think the Trials would shrivel up if you took the Trial-only-carrot away, that must mean you think they are in the minority. So, why are you creating content that you know and admit only appeals to the few and putting their desires ahead of the majority? IMO that is exactly what you do with Trials and other "team content": With only a couple exceptions, ALL regular arcs can be run by solo players AND teams. 'Team content' like trials can really only be run by teams. In other worlds: -Soloable content serves both camps of players; those who solo and those who team. -Trials, TFs and other 'team content' only serves one camp. And again, you can't argue that you honestly think the solo camp is minor or insignificant since you say Trials would shrivel up without them. . |
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Hew in drag baby
In short, this is no good. There is no point in grouping when you can max out one or more types of defense via IOs and speed through solo content to get whatever you want. This is just no good. No matter how much you think giving the solo player equal reward, it will never happen. If you have 5 people, 3 of which solo because they are IOd out to the gills, and 2 of which try to group as much as possible, guess who is more likely to quit. Hint, its not the solo'rs. And the loss of those groupers will be felt. The game was always meant to encourage grouping, not trivializing it. Unfortunately, thats exactly what happened.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
There's a lot to be said about intrinsic rewards (indeed, it's a major reason why I play, versus actual in-game rewards)
However, I have to side with Posi on this one. Inherently, some players are lazy*; they'll take the fastest route to get rewards. Unfortunately, trials need all the people they can get, including the lazy ones. In-game systems need to be designed around all sorts of players, and sometimes you need to force the lazy players to actually work for their rewards.
We've all seen what happens when systems designed around intrinsic rewards are farmed and exploited by lazy players who go for the easiest-to-tap feeder bar.... the MA system
Edit: that's not to say there might be better ways to do it, like the cooldowns mentioned above..
*Lazy players may or may not include players who prefer solo-friendly content, but it's not all inclusive, obviously - simply a case-by-case basis.
For any OCR folks monitoring this thread for feedback to pass on devs (the art team, in this case), in order to avoid the sorts of complaints that are showing up here, I recommend keeping in what I call the "Rule of Clothing" in modern, Western society, the one that has produced most of your players: Both "male" and "female" styles of clothing exist. Men may wear the "male" style, while women may wear either "male" or "female" styles. (For the purposes of this game, I'd even extend the definition of "clothing" to cover things like musculature, size, and shape.)
I'm not commenting on the rightness or wrongness of this, but I think it's at the root of the constant player complaints of "why isn't this available for female models?", a complaint that has, historically, mystified the costume development team. |
I am hoping that the new business model will allow them to shift their priorities and imbalance the male/female costume options if they want to include different female-only pieces.
When they were making packs that costumers had to buy the whole thing if they wanted any of it... I can see that they'd want to maintain a relatively equal balance in numbers for either gender.
Now, the only factor, really, is development time and resources.
Hopefully they can muster enough in order to meet this suggested standard more often than not.
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Like I suggested a few months ago, cool downs would be the best way of slowing down solo progress, rather than trying to balance an arc to be suitable for all ATs and power sets - like a 7 day cool down on earning an Empyrean merit from a solo arc compared to a 20 hour cool down for earning one form a Trial.
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So, yes, set the rewards at "once per 7 days". Set the rewards so that if you have run an iTrial in the last 7 days you don't get the reward. Make the Uncommon, Rare and Very Rare components actually uncommon, rare and very rare. Make us face off against L54 foes that will eat an IOd toon for breakfast. That would be hard, but fair.
If, every couple of months, a story arc were released that was that tough, but viable for solo and single teams to run, the majority of players would eat them up.
I run an incarnate trial once in a blue moon, these days. I have Tier 3 in everything on my main, but I don't want to do it again with the other two toons I have slated for incarnatedom. Once every seven days is about ten times slower than running trials, but I'd get there. Eventually. It wouldn't be the current situation where the goal is seemingly unobtainable.
It's a wish list, sure, but if the "solo incarnate path" gave me that, I would be VERY happy.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
If Trials would shrivel up because players were given an alternate yet equal way of getting the rewards they offer, maybe that's an indication that the majority of people don't like Trials.
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Warning: Sarcasm
Because there is absolutely no precedent with this game's population of people flocking to AE buildings to level whenever a new exploit is discovered.
/end sarcasm
"Easier" and "Faster" has been shown to draw people away from fun content (assuming you believe any of the 1-50 content is fun, of course - I won't deign to speak for you) in the past. There's no reason to assume that adding an option that requires no organization of a large group and no reliance on other people's ability to follow directions, wouldn't lead to a large-scale shift to that option if the rewards were even close to equivalent.
I suspect Posi's just managing expectations. I also suspect that there are people who will never be satisfied with whatever solo/small-team path gets put into place.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
It isn't.
Was never intended to be.
The solo path Incarnate stuff is later. By the time you guys really pushed to having us include it, 21 was already locked down, content-wise.
We don't get to see the big white board. We don't know where you are in the development cycle. We don't get to see that you shuffled things around to put a solo path into i22 so we can stop going on about it unless you tell us.
The above quote, should be a red flag.
If Trials would shrivel up because players were given an alternate yet equal way of getting the rewards they offer, maybe that's an indication that the majority of people don't like Trials.
You don't have to BRIBE people to do things they want to do, that they enjoy.
Because essentially, what you're admitting to is exactly that; bribing people to run content they really wouldn't want to run on its own merit.
Now, obviously some people *gasp* love running the trials in and of themselves, and some people surely love to team. But since you think the Trials would shrivel up if you took the Trial-only-carrot away, that must mean you think they are in the minority.
So, why are you creating content that you know and admit only appeals to the few and putting their desires ahead of the majority?
IMO that is exactly what you do with Trials and other "team content":
With only a couple exceptions, ALL regular arcs can be run by solo players AND teams. 'Team content' like trials can really only be run by teams.
In other worlds:
-Soloable content serves both camps of players; those who solo and those who team.
-Trials, TFs and other 'team content' only serves one camp.
And again, you can't argue that you honestly think the solo camp is minor or insignificant since you say Trials would shrivel up without them.
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