Make UNITY endgame content viable again

captainhunter1

Hi new Dev Team!

The UNITY endgame system for Level 40 characters is really well laid out, giving mission content for level capped players. Unfortunately it is practically worthless as far as rewards go, making it the coolest feature hardly used in the game.

Compounding that issue is the fact that the second series, UNITY 2, is so well hidden as to be largely unknown by most of the player base.

I'd like to propose some improvements to the system that would require next to no effort on the part of the Dev team, but would really breathe life back into the endgame for those looking for mission content as a complement to Alerts.

1) Make UNITY missions more accessible. How about using all those cool looking UNTIL terminals not only as mailboxes, but as true mission terminals for UNTIL - like they look like they should be. Put the UNITY 'Hot Spots' (Unity 1), 'Elemental Gem Crisis' (Unity 2), 'Tripping the Rift' (Nemcon), and 'Unity's Most Wanted' missions on here in addition to having them available at the quest givers at UNITY HQ. Additionally, the 'Elemental Gem' mission should permanently be part of the 'Overwatch' list on the UNITY mission terminals as well.

2) To further tie-in the difficult to access Unity 2 content, add a location just in front of Whisper's Tomb entrance in the Cypress Grove graveyard (in Vibora Bay) to the teleport platform in UNITY HQ. (as the entrance is very hard to find - don't just make it the Vibora dock respawn ring)

3) Make the rewards commensurate with the effort. After quickly obtaining Silver Champions gear, the only rewards left are action figures - yeesh! Add a chance to get random Justice Gear materials after completing the 'bonus' mission for both UNITY 1 and UNITY 2 series (and possibly 'UNITY's Most Wanted'?). All these mission arcs require a great deal of effort more to complete than a single Rampage. Shouldn't the reward be at least the same (giving those folks who are sick to death of Rampages another option too )

4) Have the UNITY vendors in the HQ carry Justice Gear (since it would be part of the UNITY reward system)

So how about it Dev team? Why not make it a win-win deal for everyone? Breathe life back into the endgame mission system with very little effort. It's like adding new endgame content for free (since hardly anyone uses it now), and we get more play style options.

typhonus

captainhunter1 wrote: »

Hi new Dev Team!

2) To further tie-in the difficult to access Unity 2 content, add a location just in front of Whisper's Tomb entrance in the Cypress Grove graveyard (in Vibora Bay) to the teleport platform in UNITY HQ. (as the entrance is very hard to find - don't just make it the Vibora dock respawn ring)

4) Have the UNITY vendors in the HQ carry Justice Gear (since it would be part of the UNITY reward system)

Wow, yes.

pantagruel01

Unity missions are not really in need of enhancement; they're a convenient way to farm silver champions recognition, which is about appropriate level of reward given their (lack of) difficulty.​​

captainhunter1

pantagruel01 wrote: »

Unity missions are not really in need of enhancement; they're a convenient way to farm silver champions recognition, which is about appropriate level of reward given their (lack of) difficulty.​​

The same could be said of Rampages - except that Unity missions aren't run anymore because who wants Silver Champ stuff when Justice gear is better?

Unity missions may not be as intense as Rampages, but they require WAY more time to complete.

The Unity system is a great game mechanic that is wasted due to obsolete rewards. It would be nice to have both endgame playstyles (Rampages and Unity) available for real endgame rewards.

rtma

captainhunter1 wrote: »

The same could be said of Rampages - except that Unity missions aren't run anymore because who wants Silver Champ stuff when Justice gear is better?

Unity missions may not be as intense as Rampages, but they require WAY more time to complete.

The Unity system is a great game mechanic that is wasted due to obsolete rewards. It would be nice to have both endgame playstyles (Rampages and Unity) available for real endgame rewards.

For some of us UNITY is always their at anytime to 'Farm' for SCR and some of us don't want to bother playing lottery with Rampages for a modest upgrade, Heroics are alright & a easier option.

crypticarkayne

We've been discussing something very similar. We're working on some different content now (too early to say anything yet).

riverocean

I think the unity 1 & 2 misisons should be a little more prominent. The issue is.. some players don't even know they exist. That's a problem I find with a lot of the content in game.. new players have no idea it exists. There needs to be some way to more blatantly steer players towards this type of content...and looking at the rewards for content in general. So that rewards for running content entice players.

eiledon

Sure I would like more reward for the time invested, but I would also disagree the rewards are worthless, SCR to gear up a character in heroic set in less than a week of missions is perfectly acceptable (and the gear itself is good enough for just about any content, or even just to gear while you are farming for justice). And some of us like AFs, I am still hunting for my Agent V to go with my Agent J ;D (It would be good if those rare drops were purchasable with SRC also hint hint - gotta catch em all!)

Also the scr costume parts are cool, just need more of them - could perhaps be an avenue to return some of the lost weapon skins and costume parts to the game while encouraging playing of content over a period of time.

As for carrying justice gear, I think it would be better if you could turn in a set amount of SCR and purchase a justice gear token of your required type. This would leave Drifter the sole npc to spend Drifter salvage at (as it should be)

The missions themselves do need to be more accessible though - I agree with using the terminals to access missions and a remote link to the teleport system - for example the teleport pad can drop you in a location with no recieving pad, perhaps an upgrade to the system that can do remote site to site teleports ;D Or Unity itself could find a more accessible location than Until's basement. Having to change map to use the teleporter just to change to an instance map gets really boring after a while,

Arkayne - just don't remove anything that is there - the unity missions can be really fun - and one of the few times you get to fight alongside the Champions in game (even if they tend to be more a hinderance than a help it still aids immersion).

​​

somebob

UNITY gear is the 3rd best gear in the entire game (only behind Lockbox and Rampage stuff) and frankly is absolutely utterly totally more than 'good enough' for everything because CO has NO END GAME CONTENT.

Do I put all my heroes in Silver Champion Recog stuff? Yup. First thing I do (especially since my main is absolutely stockpiled in points - I even unlocked UNITY 2!). And then I don't work towards anything else because Lockbox stuff is entirely random, and Rampage stuff is an EXTREME MASSIVE grind.

Oh, and yes, the entire 'why do it there's no point anyway' aspect of it too.

Give us some reason to use the gear and people might actually, you know, WANT to get better gear. Until then, I'm completely fine with the UNITY stuff. That said, I like the suggestions listed above and completely approve of them.​​

pantagruel01

captainhunter1 wrote: »

Unity missions may not be as intense as Rampages, but they require WAY more time to complete.

I still run Unity at times, for things such as gearing up alts. It's dramatically faster than the Rampage grind.

xrazamax

crypticarkayne wrote: »

We've been discussing something very similar. We're working on some different content now (too early to say anything yet).

Can't wait to find out more!

captainhunter1

Thanks Arkayne for looking at this issue.

As I said in the OP, the UNITY system is really well laid out. I really enjoy it.

It's just that after getting all the SCR gear, there's next to no reason to keep running it. That's why I proposed in suggestion #3 in the OP, that you folks add a chance at picking up some Justice gear materials upon completion of the UNITY 'bonus' mission.

It's a simple addition that in no way changes the existing fun system, but does add a huge incentive to keep running it even after maxing out all SCR items.

xrazamax

My only reservation to rewarding justice gear materials would be the difficulty in finding people to do rampages if there is an alternative (especially to lengthy sky command). After all, why bet on RNG if you can grind for a sure thing? Maybe reward devices that increase your drop chance of getting justice gear tokens? Or a long desired item is one that lets you change your power colors. Maybe an hour long device that lets you change your power colors ? A timer would cause it to be repeatedly purchased/traded if people want to change in the future. There are also some legacy devices/costumes still missing...

I'm all for new/better rewards that make Unity missions worthwhile (make it so for pvp too!) but I don't want to see rampages get abandoned by players.

captainhunter1

xrazamax wrote: »

My only reservation to rewarding justice gear materials would be the difficulty in finding people to do rampages if there is an alternative (especially to lengthy sky command). After all, why bet on RNG if you can grind for a sure thing? Maybe reward devices that increase your drop chance of getting justice gear tokens? Or a long desired item is one that lets you change your power colors. Maybe an hour long device that lets you change your power colors ? A timer would cause it to be repeatedly purchased/traded if people want to change in the future. There are also some legacy devices/costumes still missing...

I'm all for new/better rewards that make Unity missions worthwhile (make it so for pvp too!) but I don't want to see rampages get abandoned by players.

I don't think Rampages will be abandoned.

They way I envisioned the system working is that completing the 'bonus' mission of the Unity chain grants the same RNG chance at getting Justice gear material as completing a Rampage does. So it is far from a sure thing.

The differences between the two are time and completion (plus playstyle ).

Rampages take much less time to complete, yet can be failed. UNITY chains on the other hand, take a great deal of time to complete, yet can't be failed. BOTH would give the same small chance of dropping Justice gear materials upon completion.

As for playstyles, many folks like a grouping type of approach to get rewards and have fun, while others prefer a more solo playstyle. (and heck, some people just want the option to do something different when they get sick of one style or the other)

Having two separate ways (with the same RNG chances) to get the end rewards is a good thing.

pantagruel01

xrazamax wrote: »

My only reservation to rewarding justice gear materials would be the difficulty in finding people to do rampages if there is an alternative (especially to lengthy sky command). After all, why bet on RNG if you can grind for a sure thing?

Just make is a suitably difficult grind. In terms of relative difficulty, a day's worth of Unity is about equal (effort-wise) to a single run of Sky Command or Lemurian Invasion, so 50 scr per token would be similar effort. If you want to favor people doing the rampages, I'd bump that to around 100.​​

jaazaniah1

I still run unity missions because it's the quickest way to mass SCR to buy a boatload of servitor serums when I run low. There really needs to be something in the game that alerts players to these all too useful devices. If everyone running Gravitar and Fire and Ice carried one the chance of failure would go down a fair bit. Always sad to be running Gravitar, see a player go down early with one shot and not be able to rejoin the fight because he/she did not bring an SS along and there is no rezzer on the team.​​

chaelk

since you can only do Unity 1 per day, you would have to use a load of alts to farm it.
now since as far as anyone has worked out, rampage tokens are a max of 5tokens per run between 10 people, 10% chance on first run, lower rates after that.
so how would you convert that to a once per day mission?
since you've only 1 person, so 50% chance to be able to try for a token
then 10% chance to get it.
then 1 in4 chance of a particular token.​​