do you want to spend more time in the streets?

There was a time (before my time) when street sweeping was popular.
Then it was all door missions.
Then door missions started to include outdoor areas, which added much needed variety and just allowed for telling more stories.

In the game you really only spend time in the non-instance for short periods between missions. Zones can look empty when there are a bunch of people doing missions in it. So they aren't really in the zone.

This question is tricksy because it combines to different ideas.

Do you want to spend more time in the non-instanced streets of Paragon (or the Rogue Isles)?
and do you want to spend more time in outdoor but instanced maps?

I really wish there was more to the non-instanced world. There is so much of it and there is no reason to see most of it except to explore.

I am less fond of outdoor maps. I like them soloing, but in teams they don't work as well. Enemies scatter. Players scatter. There is usually little actual variety in terrain because it is so open. You see trees and cars but they don't really affect the fight the way hallways and doors do.

I've been saying this for a long time but the game does need a lot more zone events. Nothing major like an invasion, but small things such as the steel canyon fires or the Praetorian mini events.

You could use the protest event that is in Nova Praetoria and turn the Atlas carpark into some form of this. Have the hellions destroying the cars/area and you have X time to defend the area.

Much more like the Praetorian zone events and waaay less like the steel canyon fire. Trying to use the extinguisher is waaaay too tedious. So if you don't have ice powers, don't bother.

but yah, zone events can be pretty fun. nice place to stick temps and badges

I'd like to see a new mission type: bounties. "Defeat 30 Outcasts", "Defeat 10 Hewers", "Defeat 15 Family Lieutenants", that sort of thing.

Unless I'm (a) on a team running through missions/a TF, or (b) running through an area filled with greys, I'll often stop and fight stuff anyway. (Or I'll take a young, Nova-using Kheld into Perez and blast stuff.) I wouldn't argue with more stuff like the Praetoria events.

(And as far as the SC fires... I don't consider them a "don't bother" item. The only thing I'd change is making the extinguishers auto-hit. I mean, c'mon, it's a burning apartment building. Unless you're facing away from it, how the heck do you miss?)

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Hrm...

1) I'm not fond of the non-instanced areas. The reason being is that it's very difficult to do good storytelling in a non-instanced area simply because it's impossible to control what other players are going to do.

Either you have to make them line up and wait if something important is going to happen; or you have players able to interfere and potentially grief/ruin missions in progress.

2) Outdoor maps - Depends honestly. Small outdoor maps - like Little Roundtop, or the RWZ Vanguard Base map, those I generally like. They're compact so although there's a lot of open space, you don't have to go all over creation to find one thing. Some of the 'city' maps are just block after block of streetsweeping to find one glowie... that gets old fast.

So generally - No on un-instanced areas, a "yes if done correctly" on the outdoor maps.

Revamping all the old zone events to have invasion mob coding to match any level would be a start.

I would like more outdoor instanced maps. I don't like open world content, as I prefer to play just with my friends.

I don't mind traveling to and from missions in the open world, but I like to think of my character being a superhero in a world full of superheroes, and that's difficult to do when I'm constantly encountering people like xXN I N J AXx and Nurse Spanksalot, and I'd rather not have to team up with them for zone events. People that like characters like that deserve to play the game the way they like too, but I'd rather play with people who are like-minded with me when it comes to character concept.

More zone events, plz. It's a shame we never got any with Dark Astoria or Atlas Park/Mercy Island. I'm not talking giant monsters that hand out crappy rewards for the work involved. I mean like Praetoria's awesome zone events that give out cool rewards that make running them worth it.

Also maybe even toss in a contact that hands out repeatable missions in various zones where you kill X amount of group Y in area Z. Make these missions optional, have 'em hand out decent xp, and bam.

And yeah, agreed on the more instanced zone maps. Always love more and varied maps.

I've been street sweeping a lot more in the last several months.

I don't like most of the instanced outdoor maps I've run into.

And I would like events like the SC Fires, Paladin Construction, and Giant Monsters more if they were more worthwhile.

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate street sweeping, because I hate killing anything that just respawns as soon as I turn around. If it's just going to respawn 10 seconds or 30 seconds later, what the heck was I even fighting for?

Yes, I know that instances respawn the next time someone loads them. But they don't do it in front of me. As far as my character is concerned, Frostfire's lair is still empty, as far as my character is concerned, Ernest Hest's volcano lair has been destroyed, and so on. You go in and play it later and you're the one who does these things? Fine. You go in and play it later, and I tag along? Fine, we're writing your fanfic, where you're using my character as a background NPC fighting alongside you; I know how it "really" turned out.

But if I street sweep my way around the same block of King's Row over and over again, and when I turn the corner the 4th time the same 3 Skulls are prying up the same sewer access lid or stealing the same purse, it just rubs my nose in the fact that I'm not saving the day, I'm just playing a game. It takes a lot of the fun out of it for me.

No, not really. Part of why I enjoy City of Heroes so much is all the instances. For some reason wide open areas where stuff respawns makes me uncomfortable.

I keep trying out other games, but it's all outdoor outdoor and I'm all nooo noooo.

I love soloing in the streets (or duo-ing and/or teaming with like-minded folks).
I especially like to just find spots with higher concentrations of Bosses and take them on. The old AE boss farms reminded me of high-octane, sped-up street sweeping, to be honest.

I also love the instanced aspect of this game.
So, I love both.

I wouldn't want to see the somewhat random and free nature of the outdoor maps and spawns removed and turned into the nasty rapid specific spawning of parts of the new Atlas Park model (I really dislike those aspects of the new early missions. Run there, fight any number of the league of specific named foes - that other people have also been sent to fight - and get jumped by more of them as they respawn quicker than you can leave!! Boooo!!).


I do love me some running around the streets though and finding fitting groups of plus so-and-so levels full of nice juicy, xp-holding bosses and causing trouble in the streets of the city that I know and love so well. That is a lot of fun for me.
Whether it is just a few enemies that I come across on my way to where I am going, a victim crying out for help, or a concentrated effort to run around and find the best fights I can find out there... I love it the way that it is within this game.

That said, I've always wanted to see a small amount of extra content added into the open zones. Even just tip missions are a nice added bit of content that can arise from street-sweeping, but I always imagined something a little more... Actually, the side-missions in Safeguard/Mayhem Missions are exactly what I would love to have in open zones.
That and some more burning buildings and some kitty-cats stuck up in trees!

Quote:

Originally Posted by InfamousBrad I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate street sweeping, because I hate killing anything that just respawns as soon as I turn around. If it's just going to respawn 10 seconds or 30 seconds later, what the heck was I even fighting for? ... But if I street sweep my way around the same block of King's Row over and over again, and when I turn the corner the 4th time the same 3 Skulls are prying up the same sewer access lid or stealing the same purse, it just rubs my nose in the fact that I'm not saving the day, I'm just playing a game. It takes a lot of the fun out of it for me.

Hrm... the outdoor open zones don't really respawn like this! And that is one of the reasons why I do enjoy it.
If I clear an area, it stays clear for a bit... but when enemies do return, they're not the same exact ones doing the same exact things. And they don't respawn while I'm there (other than the newish Atlas Park areas that introduce new players to how this game does not work anywhere else).

Different gang members may show up in the same places, but... that's the life of crime-fighting!

I really enjoy the occasional street-sweeping as a change from instanced missions. Unlike an instanced mission you can push yourself moment to moment, take on the odd +4 or +5 boss while mostly facing +2s. So I'd prefer not to use invasion style code that makes everything +1.
Plus Im in favour of more open-world interaction with other players.

Some sort of meta-game around this would be cool.
We already have defeat badges and some street sweeping required to trigger giant monsters (eg Deathsurge). More of this type of thing would be cool, or bounty missions as suggested.

Personally, I'd like to be able to occupy/reclaim sections of the city like in that one PVP zone only sans the PVP.