And this is why City of Heroes will always be unique

I hope this thread doesn't get modded, because it makes an excellent point.

The ease of movement and communication in this game really has ruined me for other MMOs. I have a Lifetime sub to one fantasy-based MMO that I haven't played in years. When I try to log in and do a few quests, the plodding pace of travel (even when mounted!) drives me crazy within half an hour.

I agree and would add that my favorite aspect of optional teaming is how great the sidekicking is now. It was good when we could sidekick or exemplar one person but to be able to bring along an entire team is just awesome. And the leash being gone? Love that.

If you have a more difficult path to something and a less difficult path to something, people will flock to the less difficult path.

However, if you have a solo path to something and a team-based path to something, people will more often than not flock to the solo path to it even if it's more "difficult" or time-consuming. This is because social interaction is a factor in determining the final gauge of difficulty in accomplishing the task. The difficulty isn't in actually carrying out the task at hand, it's generally in all of the stuff around getting to the task at hand, such as recruiting people, explaining to people what to do, managing them once whatever it is you're doing starts (heading off drama, herding the cats, etc.). Yes, a solo path may be more "difficult" or time-consuming, but at least it's a known quantity of difficulty and time consumption, which is more often perceived as easier, even if strictly speaking, it's not really easier.

And that's a HUGE problem if you're developing a game in which the multi-player experience is a key factor. The $64,000 question (literally, if that's in the ballpark of your salary) is: How do I get people to want to team up? The obvious answer is to gate some sweet rewards behind teaming up. Players will want to team up in order to get to those rewards. Contrary to your OP, City of Heroes has always used this mechanism. Remember back before all of the inflation, when if you have a million influence, you were really rich? Task forces used to award SO enhancements. I remember even as a level 40 (originally) and 50 (after Issue 1), I would run task forces to earn those because of how friggin' expensive they were to buy.

Since then, we've had various rewards tied to completing team-based content. Things like Hamidon and Hydra enhancements, badges, costume pieces, Incarnate experience and salvage, huge gobs of experience and prestige, etc. Many rewards were available exclusively to people who teamed up for a while. And teaming was most emphatically not an easy thing to do to get them. Who here has begged in chat channels for someone to have pity on them and allow their level 50 to tag along on a fortuneteller mission? *raises hand... Who here has been accidentally kicked off a task force one or two missions before the end because you were exemplared to a lower-level person in the level range or a task force that got disconnected? *raises hand...

It's not rocket science to know that an average person in an MMO spends, I would guess, around 80% of their time in the game solo. Possibly even more. So any MMO that doesn't have solo content is going to be doomed to failure, because I can't imagine a game that is sustainable only on its team-based gameplay. However, there is a point at which without team-based gameplay, the game starts getting less and less fun as an MMO. Or to be more precise, it gets more and more like a single-player game with a few multi-player features tacked on as an afterthought. Now, I don't have a problem with single-player RPGs. I've played them almost all of my life and some of them have been brilliant. However, when your average schmo buys an MMO, they're not looking for a single-player game with multi-player features tacked on as an afterthought.

At the Player Summit last November, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Ross "Giant Monster" Borden and across from Brian Clayton at dinner. At one point, they asked the people around them what we thought would make the game better. I immediately told them that I really appreciate all of the hard work they've put into making teaming up in the game easy, especially the new-at-the-time LFG queuing system, but I think they should still keep hammering away on it.

I told them that if they could have just a button that you could push that says, "Find me something to do," that would be the Holy Grail. I think that's basically what the LFG queue is for, but our existing players are in such a mindset right now that they have to have such-and-such and archetype or such-and-such a level-shifted character make-up on the team, or that teaming with strangers is always a disaster, that no one is using it. I've tried myself here on these very forums to push the player base into using the LFG queue more, but such suggestions have generally been met by people saying, "Team up with the unwashed masses? Ew, no way." Or, "And risk getting people who don't know how to play? These missions are too hard and we'll fail." Which is a shame, because I couldn't disagree more. Most of the content of this game--including most task forces and trials--is so easy that trained monkeys could win by pounding random keys on a keyboard. (And yes, I've been on enough PUGs to know that sometimes, that's precisely what happens; yet still, I love being on PUGs.)

I guess today that I would have to addend the "Find me something to do" button idea with, "Find me something to do that doesn't require a leader to coordinate things," because I think that's the biggest obstacle to teaming--having those people who are willing to do the grunt work of recruiting people and herding the cats during the mission. Perhaps that's part of the answer--to develop medium- to large- team-required missions that are composed of simpler tasks that don't require a lot of coordination.

So given that most people join this game for a rich multi-player experience, and don't argue with me on this point because you are not going to convince me otherwise and I will reject without consideration whatever lame excuse you throw out there, how do you suggest delivering that experience while also appeasing the "make everything solo-only accessible!!!" crowd? I contend that just giving people solo options for everything that can be accomplished on a team isn't an option, because people will almost always choose the solo path simply because of inertia. I also contend that "a rich multi-player experience" means actually sharing missions, not just chatting with people or other players being background decorations as you move from solo mission to solo mission. Gating something--anything--behind teaming always causes an uproar, but the fact is that it works. The latest uproar was over Incarnate content, and a bunch of people contended that it was okay to gate other stuff behind team-oriented content, but I remember similar uproars over other rewards, such as HO enhancements, badges, costume pieces, etc. Every time the arguments were the same, every time there was rumbling for a while that eventually died down, and then that very thing was later used as an example of what was "okay" to gate behind team content when the next thing came along.

So seriously, because I'm sure the devs would love an answer to the question themselves. How would you deliver on that rich multi-player experience? How do you make people want to team up without gating stuff behind team-oriented content? How do you keep City of Heroes from becoming a single-player game with a few multi-player features tacked on as an afterthought?

Well, I'm going to take a bit of a contrary stance here and describe my time and experience over in the Laser Swords Online game as overwhelmingly positive and take my time to detail why. I think the first huge mistake we're making here is comparing these two to begin with. What holds true and works for one game does not mean it holds true and works for another. I think saying because City Of...has x, y and z that makes it automatically the best option. But I digress.

As far as teaming is concerned, Laser Swords Online does a better job of the notion of teaming by making the team sizes small. To this day I have never understood why our Task Forces for instance need to be eight people, or Trials need to be up to twenty-four people. And make no mistake, the second half of the Incarnate tree will up those number requirements for no other reason than that the level shifts and power levels of Incarnates at that level will necessitate more difficult and more complex encounters to compensate for them. The instant you introduce any mechanic whereby there's a tiered system of progression, you also tier the difficulty involved, which often translates into group size as well.

I love sidekicking, but it's not the be all and end all of game design either. Yes, you fight at a comparable level, but if you're sidekicking down, you're often losing a lot of the benefits you've spent a lot of time working on. I think largely that's why we don't see this mechanic outside this game too often. And I also bear in mind we have a small and very 'cottage industry' population. All you have to do is see interviews with the developers and they're happy to have this unique IP and do their own thing without the pressures and expectations of brand name properties.

And that's fine, I don't begrudge them that because that gives them freedom of design. But all that makes this game is niche, really. There's a total of three superhero MMO's out there. That's it. Only one of them can be argued to be holding its own after a long period. As I said, what works here works here. It's not a given that it'll just work everywhere else.

As far as travel times are concerned, we are over-indulged with travel options to the point where travel powers themselves are becoming irrelevant. Sure, that's fine for getting to the game where that's what matters, but the other side of that argument is that you're missing out on seeing the vistas around you and becoming immersed in that world. And for me at least, I am immersed in Laser Swords Online. It's a double-edged sword; on one hand sure, I'd like to be able to zip quicker to where I'm going and do stuff, but on the other hand, would I just want to coast over the landscape without seeing any of it? I try and take my time in this game to see this game and take it in; I feel really sad that Praetoria City particularly is somewhat of a graveyard now, because it's stunningly gorgeous and deserves to be walked through, let alone run. Not everything is convenience and not everything is a hassle.

Let's take a step back and ask ourselves how much of Paragon City really pops with atmosphere for people here. I can say Atlas Park is great. ....that's about it. We have bus stops with no buses. We have no children. We have no schools, no churches. We can't sit here and say we have an embarassment of riches in that area.

And I want to say here I'm not trying to run down CoH, but just am attempting to put some perspective on the situation, as I bear in mind Laser Swords Online is barely two months old. I'm sure as heck not going to crucify a game on that criteria alone, because this game would've been buried on that basis with no flights, no capes, a level cap of 40...the list goes on. This other game is preparing a huge game update (ie an issue) that is hitting not only pretty much all of Arcanaville's concerns, but more.

As a roleplayer, I am giddy with some of the improvements they're adding, which include full customisation of clothing and an expanded 'family tree' system....which I suspect more than a few players would want here.

Which brings me to the social aspect of the game. I do think it's sound and there's tangible physical rewards for doing so. I'm 'fortunate' I suppose to have a small group of friends to regularly play with, but I progress, I have moral choices to make, I get to experience content with my friends. I did an hour-long instanced situation last night that flowed with story, action, tactics and story and never remained staticly in one location or map. There were breaks in the action that also changed scenery. And again as a roleplayer, I've found ample opportunity to flesh out my character and feel a part of that setting. I don't have to do their version of raiding, but over level 50 here, well....am I going to advance in any meaningful way without doing it? I think we all know that DA isn't a true viable alternative for doing Incarnate stuff (that's not hyperbole, just a statement of how far you can go doing just DA), and I still resent somewhat story and character advancement being gated behind a system that in many ways echoes the grind and tedium we associate with other games...

I haven't had a single-player experience in this other game; I've had an MMO experience, which is what the game purports to be, and I really just wanted to say that in response to what I think is a lot of knee-jerk reactionism to a game that 'doesn't have what this one does'. That's really how a lot ot the criticisms sound to me, and I think that's not only unfair, but unrealistic. It's apples and oranges. I'm taking the game for what it is, just like I am this one. Taking a step back and seeing the positives and negatives in both is something we could all do a little more of.



S.

I've played several MMO's over the years and mostly solo'd on all of them just because sometimes i wanted to sightsee and read the stories and just relax. Once the game gets to the point where your forced to team, i quit playing it. Which means i didn't have much teaming experiences and the few i had were forced and not fun. Coh is the only game i stayed on for more than a month. Almost 3 years so far. The reason i've stayed with it is because teaming is optional and not required. Oddly enough, i team quite a lot on this game and have for quite a bit of the time i've been subbed. Since teaming is optional, when i do team, it's because i want to and it's usually more fun than being forced to. I can play at a relaxed pace by soloing or i can pick up the pace by teaming. You choose to have fun, you can't be forced to have fun.

I think some things are more excusable on a practical matter than others when it comes to the amount of time a game has existed and been in development. A game that has existed longer is going to have more content, for example, so a new game can't match that volume. But that doesn't excuse content gaps, it just excuses having less content. Less is excusable. Insufficient is not.

But when I ask why player communications is extremely limited in a newly released MMO, that's less excusable. That presumes every MMO dev team lives in a bubble and has never seen another MMO, and only until they write one will they know that this is something you should not omit. For some things, there is an advantage to being new, the advantage of seeing what everyone else has done and the challenges everyone else has had to face. An advantage that it seems most MMO dev teams squander.

If you're trying to be innovative, then that very innovation can require you to take chances with new things. You do not know if your way of doing things will generate the same problems. You may fail spectacularly, but history was not a good guide anyway on whether you would have succeeded. But when innovation is not an issue, doing things your own way just for the sake of doing them your own way is ego getting in the way of good design.

All MMO's need "Super Sidekicking(TM)". Period. I'm not sure why it doesn't happen more.

I've played a char in that ...other game... all the way to 50 without teaming once, and I also have a char over there that always plays as part of a team. So I've looked at both sides, and I have to say I agree with Arc completely.

The other thing that stands out for me about CoH is how much more noticeable the progression of power is from 1-50. My 50 in that other game still has about the same difficulty fighting a tier 3 enemy ("boss" to us; "elite" over there) that she did when she first was able to take on an enemy of that level. My main char here (a blaster) used to have to run if she aggroed too many minions; now she doesn't even blink at soloing an EB. I really like the feeling of growth that CoH offers.

I do not team very often because every team I end up on has the diff set at "+please kill us instantly at the first group of mobs, but we don't care because there is no penalty for death in this game, even though it is frustrating to die every 5 minutes."

So I solo a lot. That is what I like about the game, I do not like teaming, but I do not have to team to enjoy the game!