should we be able to fail more?
Another avenue of 'failure' is the old Preatorian trick of "If you don't do suchandsuch by X time, reinforcements will arrive!" Basically a kind of objective where, if you fail it, you just make your job harder.
I like these because, on some characters it does put the pressure on. 'Crapcrapcrapcrap! I don't wanna have to deal with another set of ambushes!!' With other's it can be like 'Hmpf, bring it foo!'.
Either way, I'm not really failing and I don't need extra rewards for it (except maybe a quicker path to the end-mission bonus).
But yes, more mission variety is always welcome in the monotony of kill alls, click glowie and beat boss and guard. That includes failable missions, missions with extra rewards for completing all objectives, missions that are made easier by completing objectives, missions made harder for failing objectives or just missions with parts you can miss or go wrong.
![](http://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/jontalbain-win3.gif)
I've always lived by the saying "If you can't lose, what fun is winning?"
However, sometimes i just want to play without the pressure of avoiding failure. Sometimes i'd like a challenge, sometimes i'd like to relax. Having both options is what makes a good game to me. I do think we need more 'win or lose' missions with rewards for winning a tough challenge. As long as there are also some other missions just for having fun without pressure.
The value of success can only be measured by the consequences of failure.
It's not enough that there just be more ways to fail. Anybody can crank up the dif to +5x8 and then take a pug of SK'd newbies out on a Maria Jenkins. What's important to remember is that the game is telling a story, and whether you succeed or fail, the story needs to move forward. Failure should not consist of throwing yourself at a wall of enemies, hoping to take one out before you die, then running back from the hosp to repeat until you clear the mission. That's not success, it's just tedium born of determination.
The "new" phasing technology available in CoH allows for scenarios I've desired (and asked for, only to be told it would never be possible) such as having the perceived environment change based on the consequences of your actions. Imagine a mission or story arc where you must protect a building from being destroyed... If you succeed, the building remains, but if you fail, your "phase" for that part of the zone now has a bombed out husk of that building. You could also turn that around, and use it on a larger scale to have your character help rebuild Boomtown one ruined block at a time, maybe even finishing with a statue of your character (mirror image NPC with coloring modification to match cement or marble, maybe an increase in size, and just permanently standing on a pedestal unmoving, and untargetable).
With success in certain story arcs, you could drastically alter the perceived spawn of local mob groups, for instance, actually cleaning up the Skulls in Kings Row, or kicking the Council out of Sharkhead. With failure in those same storyarcs, the spawn rate could change just as much, but down a different path, to show the consequences of failure... for instance the Skulls have solidified their powerbase in King's Row, meaning that they now spawn in larger groups, and in areas generally claimed by other factions in the zone... We've seen tiny hints of what this tech can do, killing a praetorian contact, or cleaning up the Hellions by the bank in Atlas.
That's just the tip of the iceberg though. Imagine being able to cure the Lost on a large scale, or taking out a few key men and taking over The Family as it's new boss. Imagine turning Atlas Park into a haven for goodly NPCs safe from the dangers of purse snatchers and loiterers. Imagine screwing it all up and having Atlas taken over by hordes of Arachnos troops loyal to Lord Recluse (ironically also eliminating purse-snatchers and loitering Hellions)... All these things and more can be done, allowing your characters successes, failures, and choices to actually matter (at least in the world as he perceives it).
None of these things would mean that the time you invested in trying to accomplish something was "wasted" if you happen to fail a world-changing mission... Quite the opposite in fact, it guarantees that succeed or fail, you made a difference. You may not be on the same path you were traveling before, but you're definitely further down the road than when you started, instead of merely being a little bit of XP closer to the next level.
Dear NCsoft, if you go through with this shutdown you've guaranteed you'll not see another dime from me on any project you put out, ever.
http://xx-starhammer-xx.deviantart.com/
I'm honestly a bit mixed. I kind of agree with Leo, I prefer more 'this objective is optional, but it will help you if you get it done' style missions than strict "Do this right or fail".
I've done a few examples of fail-able missions. In Faultline, when you rescue Doc Delilah it's possible for her to be killed. It's not a bad mission, but since you're attacked by ambushes and she will stay and fight them to the finish, you have to hand hold her the whole time. It was honestly kind of frustrating the first (and only) time I failed it.
The other one, I forget the contact, was a 'stop the gangster from escaping' mission. Problem: There's no way to tell where an enemy is on the map without a marker or physically running into them. Given how 99% of the game is, I thought the 'stop from escaping' was merely flavor and they'd be sitting with a spawn in the back of the instance with a couple flunkies. NOPE! As soon as he spawns he begins a dash to the door and since it was a warehouse level there were 2 completely different paths. I chose poorly. Got to the end of the warehouse and no boss. I panicked, -zoomed- back to the entrance just in time to witness him going through the door and seeing that "FAILED MISSION" text pop up. -Really- disappointing. I'd have been better off just camping at the door, but since it's such a complete rarity in the game, I didn't know.
Oh and then that pain in the *** Croatoa mission that from here on out I will -always- auto complete because trying to stop the Fir Bolg from passing through the portal with just a couple people is insane, much more trying to solo it. It's not fun, it's downright frustrating knowing failure is -inevitable-.
Though, to touch on the 'do this or the mission gets harder' style things, I don't mind the mechanic, except when it forces me to feel under the sword of damacles because the timer is too damn short. Going into a level and being told "You have 3 minutes to search 3 floors for a randomly placed glowie or get nailed by ambushes" is -really- kind of irritating. Kind of like with the Halloween Tip mission. It's better for me to just stealth and speed to the end than trying to fight and get a tiny boost of time.
That said, I also agree, I -love- any optional stuff that gives a worthwhile reward for getting it done, including the stuff in iTrials or the Apex/Tin Mage TFs.
A chance to fail is fine, IF there's an oppurtunity to try again.
Trials (the original kind) were only differentiated from Task Forces by a chance to fail. Some (like the respec trial) make you restart the failed mission. Others just outright fail and you have to start over.
Most failable missions cost you nothing more than the end-of-mission rewards. This is fine by me.
Incarnate trials can be failed, and doing so costs the entire league their potential rewards. This sucks, but it can be retried, so I don't mind.
Things where failing once means that you will never get that reward are not cool in my book. Yes, I'm talking about you, Efficiency Expert Pither. They annoy me so much that I've never even attempted Pither's badge, even though I've had several people tell me how easy it is, even though I'm fully IO'd out with T3/4 Incarnate abilites, even though my girlfriend got it by accident when she didn't even know the badge existed, just because I know that if I do try for it, there's a chance that I may have a hiccup in my Internet, or a power failure, or a lag spike, and fail a mission, losing the badge. In my mind, not having the badge, but having the chance to get it later is better than losing the one and only chance to get it ever.
There's a few other newer badges that I would look at the same way, like Vincent Ross's for doing the side missions in his arc, or the Hero one for rescuing cops in a burning building. Screw those up and lose the badge. But those ones are in Ouroboros, so I can try again - so they don't bother me.
Short version: Failable is fine. Failable with no chance to ever try again is bad.
@Roderick
Things where failing once means that you will never get that reward are not cool in my book. Yes, I'm talking about you, Efficiency Expert Pither. They annoy me so much that I've never even attempted Pither's badge, even though I've had several people tell me how easy it is, even though I'm fully IO'd out with T3/4 Incarnate abilites, even though my girlfriend got it by accident when she didn't even know the badge existed, just because I know that if I do try for it, there's a chance that I may have a hiccup in my Internet, or a power failure, or a lag spike, and fail a mission, losing the badge. In my mind, not having the badge, but having the chance to get it later is better than losing the one and only chance to get it ever.
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Short version: Failable is fine. Failable with no chance to ever try again is bad. |
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."
Yes, but the majority will cry too much about it so it won't happen.
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I'd have no problem with it myself.
I even want a capture mission that actually has you captured and in feeling in danger!
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
The BrandX Collection
There is an old adage: "never ask a question you don't already know the answer to."
Likewise, I never run a mission that I don't know in advance I will successfully complete.
Should it be that way? Some players do like suspenseful situations where the outcome is in doubt. That closely resembles how it is in real life.
But for me CoH is escape from real life and if I can play it to never fail, then that is what I will do.
Given the overall level of bugs, poor coding, unreliable servers, and a host of other problems from needy pets to power failures that are outside the control of both PS and the players, this is a horrible idea.
I started CoX 8 years, 3 houses, 5 internet providers and six computers ago and I still get mapservered more often than I like. As it is, I have to restart the mission when that happens. If that happened on the final mission of an arc and then people were totally locked out of completing it, got diminished or no rewards or some other penalty, then the rage would be more trouble than the devs want to deal with.
While this idea isn't quite as stupid as permadeath, it fails for the same reasons. There are too many external factors that could cause missions to be failed for it to ever really work.
I'd rather have more positive reinforcements (like how you can get extra Astral merits in iTrials if you manage to complete the objectives that would award you extra badges) than to have more failure scenarios. I think more people would want to focus on trying for the bonus rewards than to have to worry about failing the basic missions.
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In Camazotz all are equal. Everybody is the same as everybody else.
not be defeated, but actually fail missions. And not forced failures like no matter what you do Statesman is killed. But as in Lady Jane gets defeated or more than 30 fir bolgs escape.
A lot of missions say there is time pressure but then there is none. Whereas in safeguard if you do not stop the bombs in the sewers they blow up and if you are inside you are defeated. Or you can just fail to stop the bank robbery. I like the idea of having some higher pressure missions - with a higher xp reward for mission success, maybe. I wonder if the repeatable missions in pvp zones, hollows, etc could be changed to a shorter time limit like 15 minutes. Make them rush missions. Of course that might just mean ninjaing missions |
Virtue: @Santorican
![](http://i.imgur.com/dmfLZ.jpg)
Dark/Shield Build Thread
A chance to fail is fine, IF there's an oppurtunity to try again.
Trials (the original kind) were only differentiated from Task Forces by a chance to fail. Some (like the respec trial) make you restart the failed mission. Others just outright fail and you have to start over. Most failable missions cost you nothing more than the end-of-mission rewards. This is fine by me. Incarnate trials can be failed, and doing so costs the entire league their potential rewards. This sucks, but it can be retried, so I don't mind. Things where failing once means that you will never get that reward are not cool in my book. Yes, I'm talking about you, Efficiency Expert Pither. They annoy me so much that I've never even attempted Pither's badge, even though I've had several people tell me how easy it is, even though I'm fully IO'd out with T3/4 Incarnate abilites, even though my girlfriend got it by accident when she didn't even know the badge existed, just because I know that if I do try for it, there's a chance that I may have a hiccup in my Internet, or a power failure, or a lag spike, and fail a mission, losing the badge. In my mind, not having the badge, but having the chance to get it later is better than losing the one and only chance to get it ever. There's a few other newer badges that I would look at the same way, like Vincent Ross's for doing the side missions in his arc, or the Hero one for rescuing cops in a burning building. Screw those up and lose the badge. But those ones are in Ouroboros, so I can try again - so they don't bother me. Short version: Failable is fine. Failable with no chance to ever try again is bad. |
Eco
EDIT: My bad, I didn't, I just got it normal, I remember now. I've been soing flashbacks to get the villainn stature badges on my recently turned ex-hero, and I got confused with that.
It was very very easy to get, however. I sped through every mission, never even got close to being worried about running out of time. A Mapserver dc isn't plannable-for, of course, I see what you mean there.
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)
Yes, but the majority will cry too much about it so it won't happen.
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All of the types of missions mentioned - timed, NPC escorts, objective defences, the GOD DAMN Stop 30 Fir Bolg mission, all of those are pretty much the sum total of content I despise.
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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I even want a capture mission that actually has you captured and in feeling in danger!
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![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
It's a complicated issue. For example, one thing that hasn't come up in the thread is what happens when you have a whole team full of people with the same mission. This happens to me pretty regularly. We're all in the RWZ, we all have the same mission, we fail, and the mission owner gets a new mission from the contact but everyone else still has the old mission. Now we have an array of bad choices. Do the exact same mission over again (possibly over and over seven times to get everyone through it), or burn a mission complete (knowing that the same thing will probably happen in the next mission), or proceed with one person's mission chain while everyone else is left behind in terms of completing the content. They're all bad choices.
On the one hand, I like the fact that we can get a second shot at succeeding in the mission. On the other hand, I hate that we often need three or four tries before we can keep the stupid suicidal squishy hostages alive.
There's also a balance of happiness. I suspect that failing a mission causes more negative feelings than succeeding at a failable mission causes positive feelings. In other words, imagine we could measure happiness in units called "haps". Finishing a regular mission might give you 5 haps. Steamrolling a mission with no challenge might only give you 3 haps. The kind of mission where you're always on the verge of a team wipe but somehow you keep pulling it off with just a few deaths here and there might give you 9 haps. Now, if you add missions that can fail, succeeding might produce 10 haps. Perhaps 15 if it's really challenging. The problem is that failing at that same mission will produce negative 20 haps.
All in all, the existence of such a mission will result in an overall loss of happiness in the playerbase. That's not much of a goal to strive for. (Of course, I'm obviously just making up numbers here, but I do think these proportions are in the right ballpark on average.)
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
I say yes!...But not for all missions out there, they will only work on some types others..
![](http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll291/EndNewt/City%20of%20X/BannerASDFStyle.png)
The 'fail' options could be like:
Hostages become targetable, attacked, and killed, you must protect them. (some actually were targetable when the tech was first introduced, folks raised a HUGE stink about it and it was removed, but I know it's possible for them to do this) Adding timers to appropriate missions when you're told "Hurry, there's not much time!" on those that don't have timers now, of if singling those out is too difficult, add a timer to every last mission at the end of all the story arcs. Lower the ammount of time available on missions which already have timers. Team wipes (or your character defeated, when solo) will fail the mission. Stuff like that. However, they MUST be selectable options. I don't think it'd be well recieved if they just started making difficulties like this standard |
There are a number of problems with allowing more missions to be failed.
1) It would introduce new technology. That's not a bad thing, but there are often problems with new tech in the game. I know that the first time I ran the "Protect the War Wall generators" all the generators were destroyed within about a minute of entering the map. I never even saw them. That's frustrating.
2) Escourt missions and game AI. Everyone complains about Fusionette, Lady Jane, General Runs Screaming into melee and hits things with his pistol, and the like.
3) Balance. The archetypes that would have the most trouble with missions like "protect soundso" are Stalkers and Blasters. Archetypes that don't really need any more trouble soloing: Stalkers and Blasters (blasters much more so).
4) Why does being defeated mean failure for a Dark Armour Tank, a Fiery Aura Tank, or a Willpower tank? I don't like taking my Radiation defender on "Master of ---" Taskforces because it means I won't be able to use Fallout, Mutation, Soul Transfer, or Vengeance.
etc.
There's also a balance of happiness. I suspect that failing a mission causes more negative feelings than succeeding at a failable mission causes positive feelings. In other words, imagine we could measure happiness in units called "haps". Finishing a regular mission might give you 5 haps. Steamrolling a mission with no challenge might only give you 3 haps. The kind of mission where you're always on the verge of a team wipe but somehow you keep pulling it off with just a few deaths here and there might give you 9 haps. Now, if you add missions that can fail, succeeding might produce 10 haps. Perhaps 15 if it's really challenging. The problem is that failing at that same mission will produce negative 20 haps. |
I'd probably say, succeeding on a mission that I often fail on other characters pulls off a super amount of haps for me.
There's that one villain mission from Sister Whosit in Cimerora where you have to rescue Ghost Widow that I've failed quite a few times. On Brutes, on Stalkers, on Masterminds...when you get to the end, it's not so much the Ballista that kills me, but the bagillion Longbow with their stun grenades, sonic grenades and bosses with various powers that tend to outlast me. I die and Ghost Widow has to face them alone. Try to Hosp back but by the time you get back to the fight, Ghost Widow bites it (her DPS must suck).
But when I actually pulled out my corruptor and did the mission, it was chaos but I won and it was no contest
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
Having those missions you can fail, having failed them but coming back with more experience perhaps with a new character puts emphasis on challenge where instead most of the game involves patience. It's definitely not a bad thing there is emphasis on both or some missions focusing on one vs the other. So long as there's still room for both in the game, how can you go wrong?
![](http://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/jontalbain-win3.gif)
^This.
I'd have no problem with it myself. I even want a capture mission that actually has you captured and in feeling in danger! |
In Warburg, you can tell them to "Wait here" and "follow me".
If hostages could do that, and there was a way for ambushes to detect level (meaning what level of the map you're on) it might even be neat, and allow for tactical decisions no matter your AT. Unfortunately, as it is, it's a timesink that doesn't really give the player the ability to apply tactics. However, it can be done in game, and has been applied in a few instances, but almost too little, too late, and appeals to specific AT's more than others... (not that that's a bad thing per-se). (that also goes into my arguments about PvP accomplishments, but I'll leave that for another thread...)
The trick is in the way it's implemented, and how the player can implement it in return. A Brute or Tank can "conceptually" keep barreling through given time, a Blaster/Scrapper/Corrupter/Dominater can "conceptually" keep barreling through relatively easily. A Dom, MM, and Controller...(along with a few exceptions from the other AT's especially depending on level) may need to tell a escort/hostage "stay here" handle the ambushes, then bring them along.
Having played every AT, there's tacical considerations with each in escorts, though in only one instance that I can redily recall (Warburg) that it's applied, and matters.
EDIT: Yaknow, I completely misunderstood what you were saying! My apologies!
I think that's a good idea, and they have "Jail's" on some maps you get sent to instead of the hospital... What would you suggest that would make that more... interesting?
"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.
Having those missions you can fail, having failed them but coming back with more experience perhaps with a new character puts emphasis on challenge where instead most of the game involves patience. It's definitely not a bad thing there is emphasis on both or some missions focusing on one vs the other. So long as there's still room for both in the game, how can you go wrong?
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If I have to be honest, I don't like to lose. That's why I don't do PvP in any game - because PvP has to be fair to both myself and my enemies, and I like playing with an unfair advantage. The AI is a good sport about letting me win, though, and doesn't mind when I cheat, which is why we're the best of friends. "Challenge" has never been a motivation for me, and the absence of challenge has never been a detriment. I look for games that involve me, not games that challenge me.
I want to go back to Kingdom of Amalur that I mentioned in another thread. In this game, my character specialised in Blacksmithing, and I devoted so much time to it and admittedly used save-scumming to salvage some really good components, that about mid-way through the game I made for myself armour that was SIGNIFICANTLY better than what current content was based around. Also, because I took my sweet time and did all the side quests, killed and rekilled a whole bunch of garbage enemies along the way as I was sent all over creation and so forth, I managed to level my character a good 10-20 levels above most of the overworld I was doing missions in.
The result of the above is that my character was INSANELY overpowered, and a very strong fighter besides, so whenever someone would tell me about this oh so horrible monster that no-one had a hope of killing but they'd pay me if I did, I'd do a half-smirk and go kill the thing with the greatest of ease. I don't believe I ever lost more than a tenth of my hit points, and I considered the enemy who could do this to be particularly hard.
This made me the happiest in a quest chain involving an arena tournament. I knew from the start that the odds would be stacked against me, and everyone kept saying how there was now way I could win, but I knew better. My character was a pure monster at that point. They told me I'd be fighting with just one team-mate against entire teams, and my first question - had I been allowed to ask it - would have been if I could go in alone against the enemy team, instead. Frankly, giving me people who could help out actually made things HARDER as opposed to easier, and harder in a non-entertaining way. At least quest-specific NPCs in that game can't die. They have no health bars. They also deal no damage to enemies, though, so they just get in the way.
My point in all of this is that I LOVE this kind of gameplay. I like easy games. I like having not just the confidence of being strong, but the arrogance of being TOO strong. A game can very much be entertaining even if it does not make me lose just by having interesting gameplay, and Kingdom of Amalur does so with an involving combat system. City of Heroes, by contrast, does this by allowing me to build my own characters and tell my own stories. The less I have to lose and be pissed off, the better off I am.
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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There is a difference between raising the difficulty and being able to fail missions. If you are running mission at the highest level you can handle, that's the most you can handle. Raising difficulty isn't risking failure it is pretty much guaranteeing it.
In the larger sense though you can die 20 times in a mission/trial and it usually means nothing, especially if you are 50.
Now make an iTrial with increased chance of VRare/Rare but for each person the maxiumum reward level is reduced for each death (no deaths VRare-Common, 1 death Rare-Common, 2 deaths Ucommon-Common, 3 Deaths Common, 4 deaths threads) and people would play that Trial very differently.
If you did a LAM like this, people wouldn't be able to run around like chickens with their heads cut off while getting nades/acids.
This is a chance at failing without just increasing difficulty. The downside is that some trials are so complicated you just run them with a core of people who know what they are doing and drag everyone else along. Add this wrinkle and the core groups would start to scheduling things and not invite anyone else.
Personnally if it make it fun/interesting I don't mind a chance of failure as long as it is only a chance. Feeling like you lose everytime is why a lot of people hate PvP. I don't like PvP but I'd play missions where a hero team goes in same instance as villain team and competes for glowies. That could be fun provided the idiot brigade doesn't "game the system" so that they always win.
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
Exactly, and I'd be at the forefront. If I had my way, I'd expunge failable missions from the game entirely. I fail enough in real life. I pay good money to play games where reality is of no consequence and I can have all my positive reinforcement irrespective of whether I deserve it. We should not be failing more. We should be failing less.
All of the types of missions mentioned - timed, NPC escorts, objective defences, the GOD DAMN Stop 30 Fir Bolg mission, all of those are pretty much the sum total of content I despise. |
To take the idea of being "unable to fail" to it's logical conclusion, we should also be unable to die, which we are in this game, as everyone is immortal. Next step is to be undefeatable, perhaps we could have less failure if everybody took no damage, kinda like most NPCs... except we have to be able to do things and defeat NPCs, so every time we attack we should automatically hit, and we should do damage that can't be mitigated to enemies that are all limited to one hit point.
Now there's the problem of having to select the correct enemies to attack, so lets just lose the interface all together, and replace the entire screen with a giant "I Win!" button, which we press, and then receive positive reinforcement (Gratz! all around) for having accomplished the only thing that really mattered, logging in and collecting our gratz... [/sarcasm]
Sorry, but that just doesn't appeal to me. I can shut the computer off and congratulate myself for imaginary success easily enough, and that would hold about as much value... possibly more because it doesn't require the expenditure of electricity.
I'm not one to promote enforcing perma-death or anything, because it's just not practical in an MMO setting. But since it is an MMO setting, something in which I'm actively taking part, rather than just observing like if I watched TV instead, I want my choices to matter. There should be consequences for my actions, whether success or failure.
Failing a mission should have some sort of consequence. The contact who was depending on you should be unwilling or unable to trust you with tasks that important again until you've proven yourself, or maybe not ever. Hitting the "Hosp" button should cost you more than the inconsequential XP debt (I never liked the mechanic of XP debt/loss, regardless of it's intensity) and having to take a minute to run back to the door. I'd much rather see recovery and recuperation rules (that take things like regeneration into account of course), and/or item degradation (increasing the potential value of items, or in this game - enhancements, that are immune to degradation). Either way, defeat should not mean moving backwards (as in XP loss), or be meaningless (as in like it is) but rather moving forward in a different direction.
Personally I think it would be a vastly superior mechanic for factional adjustments... You fail a mission against The Family, and your contact wonders if you've been bought off so they don't give you any more missions against "important" members of The Family, but at the same time, there's "a guy who knows a guy" that can get you a job, in these times when people are questioning you, guarding a warehouse, or delivering a package... the beginning of building a new allegiance, or maybe even an opportunity to get close to one of these Bosses and turn them in, regaining your earlier position of trust and authority with the original contact.
Failure doesn't mean the game ends, it just means this character gets a chance to do something that other characters didn't get to experience... or at least that's how I fervently believe it should be.
Dear NCsoft, if you go through with this shutdown you've guaranteed you'll not see another dime from me on any project you put out, ever.
http://xx-starhammer-xx.deviantart.com/
It's all well and good to make some missions appeal to certain playstyles. To that end I'd like to see missions we can fail, but, only if failure is due to actions and not kill speed. Then those simply become missions you play on certain ATs or with a team and avoid on others.
It is not a good idea to, as someone suggested, put timers on every story arc end mission. The game has to appeal to a wide range of players, and not everyone has the luxury of playing uninterrupted. Timed missions, if they are to have a timer that actually makes the player feel pressured, would need to have a maximum time based on AT or require a team, otherwise they would also fall into the "only play solo on certain ATs" category.
@Doctor Gemini
Arc #271637 - Welcome to M.A.G.I. - An alternative first story arc for magic origin heroes. At Hero Registration you heard the jokes about Azuria always losing things. When she loses the entire M.A.G.I. vault, you are chosen to find it.