Guardian Token Feeding: A Plea

itsbrou

Please do something to discourage token feeding(standing there and giving away tokens by getting tagged and rushing a turret.) The fun is completely sucked out of the content when the only way you can get some action is standing a few feet back from Defender and trading deaths with each other.

This mutual agreement to farm each other for tokens becoming a norm has completely undermined the fun of Supervillain Onslaught.

raighn

fun of super villain onslaught? that abomination of a content update was never fun...

avianos

On Slaught was a horrible update and it was never fun

If people want to give away Free Guardian Tokens LET THEM DO IT, they don't harm anyone, quite the opposite they are helping people earning tokens

Being the Villain is already one-sided anyway since you can kill anyone, it's a forced psedo-pvp for pete's sake

I wish DEVs to not waste any more resource and time on that trainwreck of a system

markhawkman

I want more OV options, not more restrictions on using them.

theravenforce

I think this has become a thing because Onslaught was oddly implemented.

Most people (myself included in some instances) really hate dying on some of their characters...but need tokens on said character, so must grin and bear it.

Onslaught is based on a negative aspect of game play in any game (dying), whilst this is okay if implemented well...I think the many problems Onslaught has/had made the novelty wear off very quickly.

I managed to gain roughly 15k Villain Tokens in the first week of Onslaught (#MedusaMain) and I've never and will never farm that much in a single week of any token ever again.

Onslaught does need to be revived but perhaps the way it works in terms of rewards needs to be looked at to give it a more positive and rewarding slant.

Ideally, being in villain mode should grant VT's over the course of you running around as a villain, with token amounts increasing by a set amount whenever you kill a UNTIL Defender and a much higher amount when you kill an engaging player.

I would also suggest making Onslaught Device timers to be static until the player has completed the obtain 50 tokens & 3 Defenders mission. Once that is completed, the player has an additional 15 minutes to run around causing chaos.

But as others have pointed out, the system has its negative aspects but it also has some nice positives (I've used it for RP events etc).

Overall the system needs to be discussed between Developers and Players to come up with something that's less cringe for heroes and at least enjoyable for most.

sterga

Cryptic screwed up the fun part of OnSlaught when they choose to focus on the monetization which also screwed the balance of the whole thing. Everything costs Villain tokens outside of the device, which was easily ignored by most people just buying one from the AH or lockbox. Or a good chunk of people just using the free daily device and calling it a day.

I don't have a problem with Villains jumping on a turret once their daily is done and giving people free tokens. The turrets didn't make the even un-fun, the numerous other issues did.

"Overall the system needs to be discussed between Developers and Players to come up with something that's less cringe for heroes and at least enjoyable for most."

Yes, it worked out so well the first time with all that testing on the PTS.​​

magpieuk2014

Onslaught is a crock, which only survives in the game because the players have found a way of working around what the devs did - which was to systematically remove ways in which Hero characters could defeat the OVs before they'd completed their daily.

If you wanted to do it right, then you would take theravenforce's suggestion one step further: have the OVs be invisible to player characters until they had completed farming the UNTIL sites around the city. Then, and only then, when they'd completed the daily, would the OVs become visible and available to Heroes to attack. Then you let the fur fly, no holds barred - remove all the dumb OV resistances to debuffs, repels, holds, and everything they added post-launch, and just let people have an old-school PvP punch up with nothing much hanging on the result except having a laugh and maybe a smattering of XP or Guardian tokens.

theravenforce

sterga said:

"Overall the system needs to be discussed between Developers and Players to come up with something that's less cringe for heroes and at least enjoyable for most."



Yes, it worked out so well the first time with all that testing on the PTS.​​

Well...I have no words to reply to that, cause you're not wrong.

I do think though that in the ideal world (a perfect world ), there was a better implementation plan discussed openly between players and developers for content. It has to make sense on both sides ideally.

--
@magpieuk2014

OV's have around 5% resistance to damage which diminishes as they build up charge with their mechanic, which is why we see ridiculous numbers when hitting them.

OV repel resistance must stay to avoid ruining the fun by dragging OVs into turret areas or just flat out being a nuisance.

OV immunity to holds are kind of a non factor, especially in CO where everything that matters in most instances save for several select instances recently created, is immune any way

I agree there is an element of mayhem which made OV usage fun, but I would like to see the prices in that shop reduced to something more realistic given the time investment and rewards. Either that or up the rewards given or something to make it less of a hassle to obtain.

spinnytop

I enjoy giving away tokens tho. It's like this neat thing we can do for the peasants o3o

aesica

someguywhoplaysgames wrote: »

Please do something to discourage token feeding(standing there and giving away tokens by getting tagged and rushing a turret.) The fun is completely sucked out of the content when the only way you can get some action is standing a few feet back from Defender and trading deaths with each other.

This mutual agreement to farm each other for tokens becoming a norm has completely undermined the fun of Supervillain Onslaught.

"Token feeding" as you call it is one of the few truly altruistic things I see people in this game do regularly. Also, while I don't speak for everyone else, the reason -I- turret dive is because doing the VT daily within the allotted 15 minutes doesn't leave a lot of time left over. If I arrive in the ren center and only 3 people are hitting me for tokens, they're not going to kill me before the timer runs out. "Turret diving" allows me to still give them something.

Nobody has to "token feed" by throwing their OV at a turret. People generally do it to be helpful to those who need guardian tokens to complete the GT daily. Do you really want the devs to spend their time finding ways to prevent people from helping each other out? Seriously?​​

aiqa

Onslaught was build of the premise that players would have fun while "losing", or feel they they are winning when dying. And I doubt either really works. I think most people usually want to feel like they are winning, and I don't think most people feel like they are winning when they are being stomped on by a big monster again and again (and like Sterga already said, least of all when the rewards are the less useful of the two tokens types).

beezeeze

I like fighting OVs near Defender and am perfectly willing to let them knock me around a bit for some tokens. If they decide to turret dive after they get bored that is alright by me, but I have more fun when they actually fight back and do more than soak up my attacks until running for the turret. Jumping around behind the OV, trying to break their LOS when they have me targeted, doing whatever I can to last as long as I can before I am inevitably stomped on is fun for me but YMMV. Perhaps they could implement a system where guardians don't get any tokens unless the OV is fighting back, not sure how exactly that would work though.

itsbrou

aesica said:

Do you really want the devs to spend their time finding ways to prevent people from helping each other out? Seriously?​​

Yes.

Because it's player versus player, not charity huggle happy funtime.

pantagruel01

In the end, the problem with Onslaught is that it's PvP, and a lot of people don't want to PvP.

A better version of Onslaught might need to be instanced, and probably needs both PvE and PvP modes. Or a hybrid -- the map has, say, one OV, a bunch of Until mooks, possibly some NPC heroes, 0-5 PC heroes, and probably reinforcements for the OV based on the number of PCs.

aesica

someguywhoplaysgames wrote: »

Yes.

Because it's player versus player, not charity huggle happy funtime.

Except it's terrible player vs player because one guy has 3,000,000 hp while everyone else only has about 10,000. Combine with that the fact that the 3m hp guy can kill pretty much any of the 10k hp guys, especially if participation is low, and you've got a recipe for something not many people want to bother with.

I get that it's not the original way the OV system was meant to be played, but I think everyone is pretty much in agreement that the OV system is a complete failure. Turret diving and giving tokens to people is the workaround people have come up with to make it work in spite of that failure.

If you want pvp, push for reform in the game's actual pvp aspects (queues, duels, etc) not a system that's barely on life support.​​

pantagruel01

aesica said:

Except it's terrible player vs player because one guy has 3,000,000 hp while everyone else only has about 10,000. Combine with that the fact that the 3m hp guy can kill pretty much any of the 10k hp guys, especially if participation is low, and you've got a recipe for something not many people want to bother with.

Eh, fights vs OVs are at least as popular as any other sort of group-style PvP; sure, OVs are tough and they hit pretty hard, but they can't heal and can't recover from dying. Now, the original idea of going and hunting down OVs was always a fail, if you see an OV wandering about taking out targets you should probably just ignore it and go about your business.

sterga

Not everyone has 10k HP. Something sadly overlooked was that the people who would most likely be the "heroes" are ATs, most of which are squishy squishes. The characters that get completely slaughtered. The characters most likely to be villains are people with free forms that simply use their daily device.

All the villain devices aren't even created equally. Grav has zero potential to kill even semi-beefy characters by herself, but Grond and Medusa do. Yet, the devs at the time were going on about how it was "balanced" for 1v10 or some such nonsense. It didn't even remotely work out that way once it hit live. It's like no one even thought to ask "What if 2 people play villains in the same place? Or 3? 4?"

I don't even know if you can balance OnSlaught where there are such large power discrepancies among players. Devs keep nerfing coping mechanisms players use just to be able to play content with their toons.

pantagruel01

Honestly, Onslaught should probably be an instanced map -- and probably one that can be either PvP or PvE. I'd likely do something as follows:

Map: uses the outside of Champions HQ.
NPCs: on the hero side, you have the Champions. On the villain side, in PvE mode you just have the OV. In PvP mode, add respawning Teleios minions based on the number of PCs, probably something like a Perfection of Body and a Teleioclone for every hero.
Victory Condition: the OV wins when all Champions are defeated. The heroes win when the OV is defeated.

magpieuk2014

Because it's player versus player, not charity huggle happy funtime.

It's not player vs player, though, it's spreadsheet king/exploiter/person who hasn't slept for three days grinding out that game-breaking item vs everyone else. And everyone else doesn't want to play, unsurprisingly.

At the moment the community has worked out a way of letting some people get something from the Onslaught content and it seems to be working for them that wants it, so leave well alone.

Personally I wouldn't waste the dev time on building instanced PvP content with OVs. No-one would play it. It wouldn't be as interesting as Cosmics to them that like that sort of content, and it would be far too hard for the rest. Allowing people to queue for an instanced smackdown would work better. A timed Grab Alert setting, with the usual NPC enemies, but with 5 player controlled villain ATs vs 5 heroes, 15 minutes long with objectives for each side, that would work.

spinnytop

magpieuk2014 wrote: »

It's not player vs player, though, it's spreadsheet king/exploiter/person who hasn't slept for three days grinding out that game-breaking item vs everyone else.

How does this apply to OVs?



Personally I still think they should just take the OV rewards and put them on the GCR vendor.​​

magpieuk2014

It applies because there's no PvP community, and therefore almost no-one in the game who might see OVs as a worthwhile challenge. Everyone else just sees it as hopelessly one-sided and hopes they go away quick or offer some freebies when there's nothing else depending on it.

pantagruel01

magpieuk2014 said:

It applies because there's no PvP community, and therefore almost no-one in the game who might see OVs as a worthwhile challenge.

There are plenty of people who willingly engage OVs who show up at Defender, even when those OVs don't immediately suicide. The way the OV system is set up is flawed -- I don't know ahead of time if people are going to engage me, so I get my 50 gt before heading to defender, which means I have only 3-5 minutes left on my timer, which usually isn't enough time for players to grind through 3m hp, so I'll often turret dive at the end -- but it's not something people are totally unwilling to do.

raighn

Changes that could potentially fix Onslaught:

Villains start with all of their abilities unlocked
Villains are in "PvE" mode until they complete the Until Guardian Daily, as such they may not attack or be attacked by other players or OVs.
Timer doesn't start until after the Daily is ready for turn in, "PvP" mode. Activating an OV device with an already complete daily or without taking the daily will go straight to "PvP" mode. Dropping the daily quest will also enable "PvP" mode.
Villains may freely change zones while working on their Daily, but once it's ready for turn in they will be unable to change zones without instantly expiring the 15 minute timer.
Heroes get guardian credit for defeating Villain if the Villain changes zone after being tagged by the Heroes.
When 2 or more OVs are in close proximity to each other in "PvP" mode their resistances and damage is reduced based on the number of OVs in the immediate area.
OV's passively regenerate health out of combat in "PvE" mode.
Villain & Guardian Tokens are replaced with a single Onslaught token, and reward prices are drastically reduced.

pantagruel01

raighn said:

Changes that could potentially fix Onslaught:

I don't really agree with these, but it's also sort of necessary to consider what 'fix' actually means. I'd probably change things as follows:

There is an engaged buff that grants 1 GT/6s (thus, you can finish your daily by spending 300s, or 5m, engaged). The buff lasts 10s, so if not refreshed you will gain 2 GT over its duration.
Attacking an OV applies or refreshes engaged.
Being attacked by an OV applies or refreshes engaged.
Healing an engaged target applies or refreshes engaged, but with a duration equal to the duration of the buff on the target (this means self-healing will not perpetually refresh your buff).

aesica

pantagruel01 wrote: »

I don't really agree with these, but it's also sort of necessary to consider what 'fix' actually means. I'd probably change things as follows:

There is an engaged buff that grants 1 GT/6s (thus, you can finish your daily by spending 300s, or 5m, engaged). The buff lasts 10s, so if not refreshed you will gain 2 GT over its duration.
Attacking an OV applies or refreshes engaged.
Being attacked by an OV applies or refreshes engaged.
Healing an engaged target applies or refreshes engaged, but with a duration equal to the duration of the buff on the target (this means self-healing will not perpetually refresh your buff).

That wouldn't really fix the OV system though, at least not the part about OVs giving tokens to people. Under those rules, I could still park my OV in the ren center and let people beat me up, with the only difference being that they have to spend 5 minutes doing it instead of however long it takes before the turret dive happens. If anything, that might cause problems for people who kill OVs too quickly, which is a thing during peak times when there's lots of people in the Ren center.​​