Content overload! A reaction from a returning player.
By
3dent,
Posted on: 2011-10-16 05:02 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Honestly? The revamped Posi TF's felt like new content to me so revamping those old arcs with new mission tech in a "Issue 25: Content Update" actually WOULD be something I'd be willing to pay for (via VIP or PP purchase).|
Originally Posted by Mr_Samoa
I doubt we'll ever get something like this, honestly. Sure, it'd be great to be able to follow the "magic track" or to follow the "Circle of Thorns track" and learn everything there is to know in those areas. It'd be really, really cool. But the Devs have a hard enough time updating old arcs with the new retcon of what REALLY happened with each new issue. To really do this well, they'd need to do "Issue 25: The Content Update!" which was just updates of the old stuff, better mission story progressions, and maybe revamped contact skins. Sad truth is without something New and Shiny or For Sale Now in the Paragon Market, we probably won't see these sorts of big sweeping content updates.
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Or they could seperate them out by origin as they technically already are... the Wheel of Destruction (20-24), The Scroll of Telikku (25-29), The Library of Souls (30-34) The Envoy of Shadows (35-39), To Save A Soul (40-44), and Upon the Psychic Plane (45-50) were originally billed as the Magic Origin story arcs. I could definitely see updating those arcs with a cleaner story and new mission tech being released as a package deal (The M.A.G.I. Missions) in the store.
Other packages might be E.L.I.T.E (Council, Malta), D.A.T.A. (Freakshow, Nemesis), S.E.R.A.P.H. (Sky Raiders, Crey), and G.I.F.T. (Devouring Earth, Rikti) covering similar ranges for their respective origins.
Then taking a cue from the HEAT arc contacts (that provide new arcs for each five level band) link these new arcs to the original level one contacts in City Hall to be handed out at each level band.
I'd totally pay money for those.
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Lore-wise, the Praetorians are now as important as the Rikti in the way they shape the game world, but with the added advantage that players can actually visit Praetoria and play as a Praetorian.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
One thing I have to add: PLEASE don't make any and all new content revolve around Praetoria and assorted silliness. There are plenty of bad guys on Primal Earth in need of a good drubbing (and good guys in need of the same). I'd rather not see CoH become Us vs. Them for 50 levels.
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The Coming Storm is the next major game world shaper, but there's still more Praetorian content needed first to finish their meta-story.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Part of the problem is that some of the old 'n' busted content was once the new hotness, and because the devs wanted to feature the new stuff they made contacts steer players toward it. Now some of that content is still good, but if you're specifically being steered toward a subset of the missions that are out there, you're left with the impression that that's all there is.
Over the weekend I just started Veluta Lunata's arc, which for the nearly four years I've been playing I didn't even know existed until last Saturday. I'd heard that there was an old pirate fort on the east of the island, but I'd always been steered in a different direction and hadn't even seen that part of the island until just recently.
AE Arcs: #10482 N00b Rescue Duty, #164100 The Four Treasures of the Tuatha De Dannan
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Why?|
Originally Posted by Jasra
The single biggest way to improve this fast is to have Matthew Habashy (and the redside equivalent) introduce you to one of the old school contacts. Effectively locking all of the original content behind radio missions was a huge mistake.
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It's been this way on CoV side for years. You don't get any regular contact at level 5, just the newspaper contact, and you have to run those until you finish the first bank mission to get a regular contact. So finally CoH side does the same thing and suddenly we have multi-year vets running around thinking there is no path except Twinshot's arcs.
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This concerns me greatly, because the replacement content is not as good as the content it replaces, at least in my eyes. It has fewer missions, less fighting, more gimmicks, more ambushes and more dialogue vectors. At least with Atlas Park, I can skip most of it, but if Kings Row, Steel Canyon and Skyway City lose their arcs and have them replaces with only three or four contacts, each with three or four missions, each with a mandatory dialogue somewhere in it, then that will be a HUGE step down from what we have now.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
They've effectively gotten rid of the low level original content already. They need a few more arcs that will take you from 10 to 20 while introducing you to some of the enemy groups and they're largely good to go. They also need a little more variety, but that will come with a little more time I think.
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Originally Posted by NekoNeko
It's been this way on CoV side for years. You don't get any regular contact at level 5, just the newspaper contact, and you have to run those until you finish the first bank mission to get a regular contact. So finally CoH side does the same thing and suddenly we have multi-year vets running around thinking there is no path except Twinshot's arcs.
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How City of Villains handled it was BAD. Sure, hit level 5 and run a Mayhem mission if you want to. I have no problem with that. My problem is... What if I DON'T want to? Well, right now, CoV has a choice - Veluta Lunata or whoever the Find Contact interface pics for me. CoH-side, it's only David Wincott.
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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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Pretty much what Sam said. It's a pointless, grindy mad-libbed waste of time. Even in the older stuff there's more than enough decent content to level up all the way. There shouldn't be any reason to ever do a generic radio/paper mission other than desire to do the mission or acquire the rewards unique to that system. Gating unrelated content behind it, on either side, is unnecessary.
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Originally Posted by NekoNeko
Why?
It's been this way on CoV side for years. You don't get any regular contact at level 5, just the newspaper contact, and you have to run those until you finish the first bank mission to get a regular contact. So finally CoH side does the same thing and suddenly we have multi-year vets running around thinking there is no path except Twinshot's arcs. |
"Trust me, it worked in the Simpsons." - Calash
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It's probably a press or marketing thing. Like, you don't want the world being saved to look TOO easy. If everyone knew that level 50 hero-dude could just swoop in and knock out all the Council members with his laser face then nobody would buy your Anti-Council Repellent Cream which is also safe for children and your dog. You couldn't run your campaign on the appeal to shut down Council activities to stop their imminent threat to global peace. |
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
I still think arcs should exemplar you if you are 'too high'.
Not to mention it being stupid that 'Oh, you're too powerful for this'. Who's to say that a Hero wouldn't pause to help with any situation? Or that a Villain would kick back with a nice bit of easy bullying, extortion and general head-cracking? |
But yeah, auto-exemplaring for missions you've 'outgrown' would probably work to solve the issue.
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No, it isn't the multi-year vets, it's the new players who will think there are no alternatives. Look how many people once ran the Hollows on one character after another, because that was where the game steered them and they didn't realize they didn't have to do it. Redside the paper was your only option, and that's where you were steered.|
Originally Posted by NekoNeko
Why?
It's been this way on CoV side for years. You don't get any regular contact at level 5, just the newspaper contact, and you have to run those until you finish the first bank mission to get a regular contact. So finally CoH side does the same thing and suddenly we have multi-year vets running around thinking there is no path except Twinshot's arcs. |
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
This concerns me greatly, because the replacement content is not as good as the content it replaces, at least in my eyes. It has fewer missions, less fighting, more gimmicks, more ambushes and more dialogue vectors. At least with Atlas Park, I can skip most of it, but if Kings Row, Steel Canyon and Skyway City lose their arcs and have them replaces with only three or four contacts, each with three or four missions, each with a mandatory dialogue somewhere in it, then that will be a HUGE step down from what we have now.
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Originally Posted by Jasra
Pretty much what Sam said. It's a pointless, grindy mad-libbed waste of time. Even in the older stuff there's more than enough decent content to level up all the way. There shouldn't be any reason to ever do a generic radio/paper mission other than desire to do the mission or acquire the rewards unique to that system. Gating unrelated content behind it, on either side, is unnecessary.
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Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
Now more than ever, we need to ditch the "path-driven" contact structure for a more open world, contact discovery system. "Dynamic Contact" lets the player discover his or her own way though the current content and gives the devs the ability to add content without having to be concerned with how it ties into the overall lore. Granted, Radio and Newspaper missions do a lot of this, but with these, you operate in a vacuum where more dynamic content would urge you to "find missions" by interacting with various locations and citizens, not specifically mission-granting NPCs.
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
some good ideas here.
Lurk more, post less.
Vasagi
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I think we should have both.|
Originally Posted by Anti_Proton
Now more than ever, we need to ditch the "path-driven" contact structure for a more open world, contact discovery system. "Dynamic Contact" lets the player discover his or her own way though the current content and gives the devs the ability to add content without having to be concerned with how it ties into the overall lore. Granted, Radio and Newspaper missions do a lot of this, but with these, you operate in a vacuum where more dynamic content would urge you to "find missions" by interacting with various locations and citizens, not specifically mission-granting NPCs.
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I think story paths should be brightly labelled in blinking neon for those who want them, but there should also be additional Contacts that are discovered/unlocked through exploration and in-game decisions. The fact that there are 'hidden' Contacts should be made obvious as well at first, then the player turned loose to look for them or not.
Some people don't like a sandbox type experience. Others hate being railroaded.
We can satisfy both camps.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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No. New players are not going to turn off XP, because honestly, leveling and getting new powers is the fun part. I suspect that only a very small percentage of people will be so story-centric to want to turn off XP.|
Originally Posted by Thor's Assassin
The story is all there and it's easy to get distracted from all the directions you can go but turning off XP is the best way to ensure you get to see everything at a certain level.
You can turn off XP in options/general |
People that know how can get the old contacts. But new players have to be led to that content (or fall into it by accident). And no one should miss fighting Dr. Vahzilok.
--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
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Agreed - I have played this game for a few years now and I still do not feel like I know where I am going because the options get overwhelming. So many of the veteran players seem to have it all worked out and are jumping two feet ahead of me becuase I do not know the what/were off the top of my head. I tend to solo as a result.
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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
Although a content update would be nice, I think a lot could be done just by organizing Contacts by content, and having a few new 'hub' Contacts that send you to the appropriately levelled guy in the chain.
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Laile - @Kaie
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Yes, the glass is half full, there is always another perspective and no they are not following you.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who's had this on his mind! There're a lot of great ideas and discussions here; I hope someone, somewhere is taking notes.
If I had to boil my position down to a single sentence, it's that I don't think people should be forced into a certain style of play, but I absolutely think that new players (or returning old fogey players who are confused by all of the Man's new tricknology :P ) should have a fighting chance to be able to know who the Hellions/Skulls/Vahz/et cetera are and do memorable things like encountering Dr. Vahzilok, or getting to the end of the Faultline chain, without consulting four different wikis and shutting off their xp gain.
-Guardian-
Crimson Archon - 50 bs/inv scrapper
-Protector-
The Stain - 40 dark/dark corruptor
Astro-Avenger - 47 ss/inv tanker
The Scarlet Spectre - 26 ill/storm controller
If the CoH engine could ever support voice-acting in all missions like I've seen in SWTOR's closed beta, my heart would explode. Their stories are pretty lackluster, but I'd die if a decent voice actor read all the phone calls and discussions contacts have. Especially Portal Corp.
[image]You CAN'T post images in sigs like they say you can in the forum FAQ.jpg[/image]
Whew...I'm still reading thru this thread!
Um, WB Crimson! Glad to have you back again!! Look what you can start these days when you barely try!
"Now, back to the thread..."
- Green Lantern
"Say, Jim...woo! That's a bad out-FIT!" - Superman: The Movie
Me 'n my posse: http://www.citygametracker.com/site/....php?user=5608
I've been showing a couple of friends the ropes, since I came back to CoH myself recently.
I really am starting to feel like a broken record. "Uh... yeah, they used to have an explanation for that group/who those guys are/who Azuria is/etc. I guess they took it out for the new tutorial stuff."
It was for a while a mystery to us how to get more contacts in a zone. I knew about the newspaper/radio missions, but I'd forgotten how it works in CoV, so I thought there was just a huge content hole between level 11 and level 15 where nothing much happened. I'm glad I was wrong there at least.
Then of course there's issues like outleveling the last contact in the Hollows and not getting any follow-up options. "IT'S SAM WINCOTT! ... Can I do anything about that? No, I'm too high level? ...wow, what a let down that is." Of course you can time-travel back and do it later, but you need a wiki to know that exists and what order to do things in once you get there. And no one wants to turn off experience gaining on their first run through the game. That just feels weird.
I really love the City Of games, but I miss the old-school gentle easing into the setting. Part of the appeal to me (and the people I'm introing to the game) was the built-up storyline and the fact that it's less rambunctious and over the top than certain other superhero MMOs on the market. That said, I love the Twinshot arc, I love that they're clearly -trying- to integrate things better... but the way they've done it has left little time to get a foothold at the start of the game.
Just to un-romanticize some of the "old content" talk...
After running Twinshot's arc, I've been deliberately avoiding new content on my newer characters and am going for the old content, even bypassing Wincott to make sure I get it.
Wow. All the gorram running around to different zones and stupid hunt missions (especially at the end of most contact's relationship bar) are annoying as pancake. If only they sold "autocomplete mission" tokens in the Paragon Market...
It even caused me to find out how the drop mission mechanic works. Didn't do what I wanted, but now I know.
--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
The hunt missions at the end of a relationship bar are what they had for repeatable content back in the day. Nobody's clamoring to get that back - but I think a few of us miss the stories that were being told, or are tantalized by thoughts of how much more interesting and effective they could be with a modern approach.
-Guardian-
Crimson Archon - 50 bs/inv scrapper
-Protector-
The Stain - 40 dark/dark corruptor
Astro-Avenger - 47 ss/inv tanker
The Scarlet Spectre - 26 ill/storm controller
1. You are forced to learn they exist, which is important for newbies.
2. It's only 3 one-off missions (one of which can be auto-completed) and then the Safeguard mission.
3. Safeguard missions have good temp powers and a badge you can't get anywhere else.
4. Once you unlock the legacy contact, at least for blueside, you're now in the loop for the rest of the game. And for redside, you better learn how to use the Newspaper/Mayhem missions because you'll need that for each leveling zone.
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