Thoughts on Trials after i12.5 - Mob Rule
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2011-12-09 23:00 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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May?|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I would assume solo Incarnate content would provide progress for the duration of its missions, such as for enemy defeats, rather than just for accomplishing the tasks. Putting progress solely on tasks and never on the process of accomplishing those tasks is a recipe for disaster and will do nothing more than see the arcs rushed and repeated ad nauseum to such an extent that someone like me will be wholly and entirely unable to team with other people. I get that giving progress to enemy defeats may just see missions farmed, instead, but at least we'll get to DO something in them.
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Theoretically speaking, you could quit an iTrial at any time and still earn iXP from defeats, but iXP is the easy half of incarnate progress. The components to craft incarnate powers is the more critical half, and that requires you actually complete tasks. If you can make progress everywhere by simple defeats without actually having to complete anything in the solo path, I'll be gravely disappointed. And I'll probably express that disappointment by exploiting the heck out of that reward structure until Marty has a stroke.
You say rewarding on task complete instead of intra-mission progress is a recipe for disaster, but the reverse is a disaster without the need for crafting.
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I think the solo rewards will be like the Trial ones - IXP for enemies defeated, an Empyrean at the end of an arc, and the chance for bonus Astrals for extra achievements during the arc.
So if something like the Roy Cooling arc was an Incarnate arc, there'd be IXP for every enemy defeated on it, an Empyrean for completing the arc, and the chance for a bonus Astral for rescuing all 12 of the rogue PPD from the burning office.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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It's a disaster from my perspective because it means a few things:|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
You say rewarding on task complete instead of intra-mission progress is a recipe for disaster, but the reverse is a disaster without the need for crafting.
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1. You can never have long missions because people would have a hissy fit. If only the end matters, then mission length is nothing but an obstacle. And I like long missions.
2. It means that teaming for Incarnate content - and despite being called "solo," I'm sure this will support teams as well - will mean I waste the time of my team-mates by insisting we fight fights instead of skipping them. I have a couple of people that I often team with, and I don't want to waste their time. Right now, we can kill-all every mission and not bat an eye because while it may be slower, each defeat still brings progress.
3. The promise that we will be able to make progress by street sweeping which has been made makes no sense if there is no progress awarded for enemy defeats.
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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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It wouldn't surprise me at all if the devs responsible for the trials are former WoW-players themselves.|
Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
It makes me wonder if there is a perception at Paragon Studios that lots of CoX players are former WoW players who willingly spend 6 hours running a single raid instance in the hopes of getting that one piece of armor to drop, where one false mouse click and the whole team gets wiped in short order, goes off to spend hundreds in gold for gear repair, and then goes back in for another try. I mean, by the standards of WoW raids, 60-minute UGTs that fail, leaving no component rewards for anyone, are hardly worth even a squeak of protest. |
The trouble with Endgame content is, it basically HAS to be repeatable. If it isn't, then you reach the end of the content and it's not endgame, at least as the term is currently thought of as. Maybe if we had some sort of gigantic climactic battle against gods with our toons becoming insanely powerful in a hitherto unprecedented armageddon of sfx and bells and whistles before being locked out of play, with an end credits sequence, and the whole thing was sufficiently randomised to be a unique experience every time, but that would undoubtedly get nerdrage at people being 'forced' to stop playing their favourite toons. That scenario is not one i advocate, I'm just throwing it out as a ridiculous alternative climax to a toons career.
Whn a toon reaches the level cap they either have to stop or do repeatable content with some other form of advancement, or the level cap needs to be infinitely raisable.
Repeatable content is always going to end up becoming boring and done by rote.
You can't have a Deus Ex style approach to the trials, because out of the many different ways to complete, there will always be the one fastest way to do it. If I HAD to play Deus Ex over and over dozens of times for some reason, after my first two or 3 playthroughs I'd find the fastest way to do it online and not deviate from that route through.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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As Sam notes, the devs have indicated that iXP and threads will be earned from enemy kills.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If you can make progress everywhere by simple defeats without actually having to complete anything in the solo path, I'll be gravely disappointed. And I'll probably express that disappointment by exploiting the heck out of that reward structure until Marty has a stroke.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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And as I mentioned, that's not the important reward from the perspective of pacing. Once your slots are unlocked iXP no longer matters, and you'll unlock them generally far faster than you'll earn the components to craft the powers that go in them. If component earning is going to be slower in the solo path than in the iTrials, its highly unlikely the thread drop rate will be appreciable enough to make defeat rewards comparable to end of mission or end of arc component or merit-type rewards. |
Originally Posted by Void_Huntress
As Sam notes, the devs have indicated that iXP and threads will be earned from enemy kills.
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I find it difficult to believe the devs will not backload the rewards primarily at completion.
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The counter-example are WSTs. From the perspective of Incarnate progress the Notice of the Well and the component drop upon completion are far more valuable than the shard drops you're likely to get from even a plow. And yet players run them all the time, both fast and slow.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It's a disaster from my perspective because it means a few things:
1. You can never have long missions because people would have a hissy fit. If only the end matters, then mission length is nothing but an obstacle. And I like long missions. 2. It means that teaming for Incarnate content - and despite being called "solo," I'm sure this will support teams as well - will mean I waste the time of my team-mates by insisting we fight fights instead of skipping them. I have a couple of people that I often team with, and I don't want to waste their time. Right now, we can kill-all every mission and not bat an eye because while it may be slower, each defeat still brings progress. 3. The promise that we will be able to make progress by street sweeping which has been made makes no sense if there is no progress awarded for enemy defeats. |
Also, the devs stated that shards allow players to make "progress" in the incarnate system already through defeats. Having NPCs in Dark Astoria drop threads instead of shards but at comparable rates to shard dropping fully satisfies the devs promise to provide progress for street sweeping. It does not imply that the rewards for defeats within solo incarnate missions is likely to be significantly higher than that.
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I meant to reply to this earlier. I was given the impression from Pummit stuff that the devs were looking at being able to queue while missioning?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Except that is a hypothetical assuming a change to the turnstile that I'm currently unaware of any plans to implement. *If* that occurs at the same time the solo incarnate path is introduced, *then* the asymmetry I mentioned would not exist in the form I described. But its the very fact that trials have to be organized at the moment - or rather they almost always are - while the solo path can be started at any time that generates the strong asymmetry I mentioned.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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They are.
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Originally Posted by Void_Huntress
I meant to reply to this earlier. I was given the impression from Pummit stuff that the devs were looking at being able to queue while missioning?
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I believe that there are other game-design options, it's just that they haven't been explored very deeply in CoX. In effect, CoX is trying to walk a weird line between the two you mention: we have repeatable trials and TFs, and we have these clunky "level shifts", a concession to a desire for something resembling level advancement even though the fragile code base clearly can not support first-order level cap increases. But I believe that the LGTF, and its consequent Rikti-themed zone incursions, point the way to exciting possibilities. It's too bad they haven't really done much else in that vein (the Banner "events" don't really count, IMO, since they aren't the result of other players' actions).
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Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
Whn a toon reaches the level cap they either have to stop or do repeatable content with some other form of advancement, or the level cap needs to be infinitely raisable.
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NOR-RAD - 50 Rad/Rad/Elec Defender - Nikki Stryker - 50 DM/SR/Weap Scrapper - Iron Marauder - 50 Eng/Eng/Pow Blaster
Lion of Might - 50 SS/Inv/Eng Tanker - Darling Nikkee - 50 (+3) StJ/WP/Eng Brute - Ice Giant Kurg - 36 Ice/Storm Controller
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Originally Posted by Wing_Leader
But I can definitely see how this would be nearly impossible for a non-melee toon, or any toon lacking high dps and high defenses. My scrapper and brute needed nothing more than the SOs and regular inspirations they had on them at the time. My Rad/Rad defender, on the other hand, only got through it by recruiting the help of my friend's scrapper.
However, I feel this is really just how COH has always been in general. If you aren't playing a scrapper, a brute, or something like a Fire/Kin controller, you will probably have trouble soloing most of the content |
Yes, that character is heavily IO'd, but with +recharge, not high +defense. (She's got around 22% ranged defense and negligable melee defense). I intentionally endeavored to offset those benefits somewhat by choosing to fight him at +2.
Everything doesn't solo as well as Dark Miasma. It, Rad and (I think) Time are very solo friendly. I don't claim no one will ever have trouble soloing arbitrary foes with wholly arbitrary powersets, but if you know you're playing something that is meant to be challenging, a poor soloist is going to have extra trouble taking it on.
I don't disagree that mez is a problem for squishies soloing. I've never liked it, and I take always Clarion on my Incarnated squishies who have no alternatives.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
^^^ Ha, I've taken Clarion on toons with plenty of shielding, JUST because I know what it's like to be a squishy with none! I think of it as a community service; its helping squishies out.
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I look at it this way. As long as I have a steady source of threads that can grow visibly (as in, at all) after the completion of a single mission of after the defeat of a couple dozen enemies, speed isn't really all that important. I know I'll get enough Threads to make my components eventually, so all that's left is watching their number grow as I would watch my experience bar creep along. That's really all I've ever asked out of the Incarnate system - give me some sort of progress I can watch.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
And as I mentioned, that's not the important reward from the perspective of pacing. Once your slots are unlocked iXP no longer matters, and you'll unlock them generally far faster than you'll earn the components to craft the powers that go in them. If component earning is going to be slower in the solo path than in the iTrials, its highly unlikely the thread drop rate will be appreciable enough to make defeat rewards comparable to end of mission or end of arc component or merit-type rewards.
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Shards just ain't it. I get one Shard per day, and that's if I'm lucky. I rarely end a mission with a Shard in my inventory. Gaining progress through Shards isn't even like watching grass grow. It's like watching the sky hoping to see a shooting star. They're rare drops, not a form of progress.
So long as Dark Astoria 2 offers me consistent, visible progress through enemy defeats, I'll be happy enough to clear all my missions of enemies.
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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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Man alive I'm agreeing with Johnny. This, this right here. The _second_ that solo Incarnate content comes out (assuming I have a VIP account) I'll never touch a trial again, and I won't miss it at _all_
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Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
I will likely go the solo route even though it's likely to be significantly less rewarding for one very simple reason:
I do not like to fail because of the actions of strangers. |
Funny story. Okay, not funny, but sad.
I get onto the game last night and on Triumph and get a few tells that I've just missed yet another failed BAF run. This doesn't make me feel like running trials. A few friends then asked me to transfer one of my 50s to Virtue and found a lot of trials going on.
Most of the people were asking for BAF, Lambda, and Keyes, with a single TPN and one group possibly doing a MoM trial.
To the developers:
I told you so.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
I've run a lot of non-incarnate TFs in the last 7+ years. I even enjoy the boring ones that other people do not, because I simply enjoy playing and even 'boring' content is fun if it's faced pace and everyone is enjoying the company of the others on the team.
I've done Dr Q at least 11 times that I remember, probably more like 20. My favorite TF to repeat is the ITF.
The old Hamidon was fun. The new Hamidon not so much. The long, mind-numbing time spent gathering. Detailing what to do like it's rocket science. Don't screw up or you're ostracized. On some servers there invites are handled in secret because no one wants random newbs showing up and ruining others' reward or locking people out of the zone if they're DC'd.
I don't enjoy the CoP at all. If I wanted rocket science I'd have studied that in college. I want to relax and enjoy the game.
BAF and Lambada are fun enough that I've run them more than once. You have to do certain things, but not over the top.
I've done UGT once and it was fun as I enjoyed the company and loved the final fight. There were parts that I did consider over the top, but good grief I loved fighting the Avatar of Hamidon.
I've done MoM and it was almost fun --- the AOE pink stuff sucked. It doesn't help if server lag or computer lag doesn't render the stuff before it's already too late to get out of it, or that playing a melee there is like getting your teeth drilled because of it. Slow down the damage tics and it'd be fun.
Haven't done TPN yet, but have watched over my husband's shoulder as he did. I'll pass after I've gotten any badges associated with it. Being brained by a citizen with a rock on a level-shifted incarnate makes about as much sense and as much fun as having to 'pass the bill to find out what's in the bill'.
I haven't done or seen Keyes yet, no opinion there.
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I suspect the devs data-mining is far more informative than your sample size ( ' ;
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Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Funny story. Okay, not funny, but sad.
I get onto the game last night and on Triumph and get a few tells that I've just missed yet another failed BAF run. This doesn't make me feel like running trials. A few friends then asked me to transfer one of my 50s to Virtue and found a lot of trials going on. Most of the people were asking for BAF, Lambda, and Keyes, with a single TPN and one group possibly doing a MoM trial. To the developers: I told you so. |
@Texarkana
@Thexder
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Is that the same data mining which a couple months ago had them scratching their heads about what they could do because nobody wanted to run the new trials, just like Snow Globe is saying?
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Originally Posted by Texarkana
I suspect the devs data-mining is far more informative than your sample size ( ' ;
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Originally Posted by Texarkana
I suspect the devs data-mining is far more informative than your sample size ( ' ;
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Originally Posted by Lazarillo
Is that the same data mining which a couple months ago had them scratching their heads about what they could do because nobody wanted to run the new trials, just like Snow Globe is saying?
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Edit:
Oh, and I'll likely be posting my results of 510+ incarnate trials (broken into major patches and trials) sometime this weekend.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
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I <3 data ( ' :
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Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Pretty much.
Edit: Oh, and I'll likely be posting my results of 510+ incarnate trials (broken into major patches and trials) sometime this weekend. |
@Texarkana
@Thexder
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Man, I so wanted to find that video of Adam Savage saying "I love...consistent...DATA! HAHAHAHA!" but it's impossible to find. Or it is for me, anyway.
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Originally Posted by Texarkana
I <3 data ( ' :
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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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Done: Incarnate Trials April - Dec 18
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Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Oh, and I'll likely be posting my results of 510+ incarnate trials (broken into major patches and trials) sometime this weekend.
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Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
The next big step for Trials will be making the TUT cross-server.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Force people to choose, and people will choose to not bother, just as they are doing now. Give people the chance to make a non-committal agreement and you'll find they'll live up to their agreement regardless more often than not.