People are doing that thing you tell them all the time: If you don't enjoy it, don't do it.
Actually... no they're not? If you take a glance at what I was responding to, it was someone saying that they have stopped making alts, despite making alts being the thing they enjoy doing. They're in fact doing the direct opposite of what I always say people should do - they've stopped doing something they enjoy, so they can do something they don't enjoy/enjoy less.
Once my stockpile of gear is gone, I won't even have the desire to make more alts, knowing that I won't be getting them good gear.
Well, if you can't enjoy making alts without being able to gear them in heroic or whatever quickly once they hit level 40, then I'm glad that you're going to stop doing that when your stockpile runs out. Would hate to think that you're choosing to do something that forces yourself to have less fun.
Well, the obvious intent here is that doing all the Rampages, Dailys, Alerts takes up an unreasonable amount of time for most players (not those who can spend half a day every day on the game). Designing your game so that most players can't get a lot of the game rewards is probably even less smart.
Well, let's take a look at the exchange rates of various currencies:
500 Zen = 5 Cosmic Keys of Power = 500 G = 2 Crates of Questionite = 100,000 Questionite (If you're lucky) = 250 Zen (At the present 400 Q per 1 Zen exchange rate)
If the CO economy was populated by accountants or business people, that chain would be about 10:9 if you were in a rush and wanted to cycle everything immediately. (It would actually be profitable because the market would settle around the average Q crate opening rather than having two max drops.)
The reason it comes out to 2:1 at best is because CO is not populated by accountants and business people. It's populated by immature thinkers. Frankly the real life education system doesn't teach much about economics or handling money, usually when it does it's some far-left college professor telling students of some evil market manipulation scheme the billionaires are able to pull off because they have enough money, but it wont work in general, 'only if you had enough money'. (Reality is, if it fails for a poor person it would fail for a rich person and the professor is pushing an agenda.) So, they hear this, and try to apply those principles in a game world where they are effectively far richer.
The AH is one example. Often times the prices get raised by re-sellers who think they can provide a retail service even though the AH itself functions as one. So, they buy the 'low' items, post high, and when their post goes the whole week and doesn't sell, they try again. Or spam the zone and trade chats.
My only advice is just learn the quirks of these people and take their money. On the above conversions, work from right to left as much as possible. Items bought from other players would be to the right of G, so farming the G directly and buying Heroic gear would be moving left to right. You'd have to farm something of value, sell it for G. If you then used the G to buy Heroic Gear, it's one move right to left and another left to right, so you break even. You could also farm something, sell it for G, buy a Key, open a box, and selling the contents of the box for G until you get Legion gear, which would be two right-to-left moves with a gamble.
I'm only an off-and-on player though, so I've only gotten the 'expert economics players' to buy me two freeform slots and three MK II vehicles.
Well, the obvious intent here is that doing all the Rampages, Dailys, Alerts takes up an unreasonable amount of time for most players (not those who can spend half a day every day on the game). Designing your game so that most players can't get a lot of the game rewards is probably even less smart
Well then you should think our current devs are plenty smart, since they've dramatically increased the number of rewards there are for people to get and increased the number of things people can do to get them - and continue to increase them. Also, the rewards have a range of prices so that even a very casual player can get rewards - it just so happens that the most desired rewards were, smartly, given higher prices.
I've never heard a compelling argument for why it's reasonable that people should be able to get things quickly. In fact, all evidence shows to the contrary - if you give them the things they want too quickly, then they quickly lose interest. Remember, I'm the one that thinks people should just do stuff for fun, and not to chase rewards, but I'm wrong about that and that's why the costs need to be high. Can't really fault the devs for acknowledging the reality of the situation - after all, it's the reasonable thing to do.
Does doing all the rampages, dailies, and alerts take an unreasonable amount of time? Depends on who you ask. Doing your two alert dailies shouldn't take long, rampages are generally short, and the mechanon missions are pretty short too - you can get a lot done in just an hour or two. I still think adventure packs should give a few more tokens per completion.
You simply cannot design your game around the needs of people who don't have time to play it, otherwise those will be the only ones playing it... but they don't have time to play it, so nobody will be playing it.
"if you give them the things they want too quickly, then they quickly lose interest"
Yeah, grinding rep in STO has two purposes once you've reached the top rep tier: getting gear from the rep, or converting rep currency to Dilithium(what STO has instead of Questionite). But STO doesn't really have a tiered rep system the way CO does. Gear sets from Omega rep(the first one) are usable at endgame the same as gear from the latest rep(Terran Empire). In CO the first rep(MCPD) has weak gear that's barely useful early game and utterly worthless late game. But MCPD rep is easy to get tokens for, just massacre random mooks. Top tier is GCR, which is hard.... but it also has the best stuff.
I think that's a moot point when you're talking about people who like alts. Those people aren't going to lose interest when they get some gear, they're going to go through the same thing with their next alt. If you make everything easy to get, sure, people will lose interest. But the Heroic gear wasn't "everything", it was just the beginning of end-game. What makes us lose interest is making a long grind to get to this "start of endgame" milestone. We don't want a long grind for dozens of characters.
People who want better than Heroic still have their long grind that will "keep their interest". You're hardly giving them "everything" by giving them Heroic.
I've never heard a compelling argument for why it's reasonable that people should be able to get things quickly. In fact, all evidence shows to the contrary - if you give them the things they want too quickly, then they quickly lose interest.
Guild Wars 1 comes into mind when it comes to getting cheap gears and a low level cap. The gear can easily be bought at level 20 and if you want a better looking armor, you you have to save up a lot of money to get them. The trick here is that those elite armor aren't any better than the cheap level 20 armors in term of armor rating or stats. Combine with the low level cap and the players can get into the end game right away.
I think that's a moot point when you're talking about people who like alts. Those people aren't going to lose interest when they get some gear, they're going to go through the same thing with their next alt. If you make everything easy to get, sure, people will lose interest. But the Heroic gear wasn't "everything", it was just the beginning of end-game. What makes us lose interest is making a long grind to get to this "start of endgame" milestone. We don't want a long grind for dozens of characters.
That is the situation I'm in right now. I still make alt to this day because how fun is it to create a character out of the character creation section and leveling them up to the max. Sure, if I really, REALLY like the alt, I try to get a heroic for that character, but I end up gearing the character with merc armor and unique secondaries. I will start worrying about alts if Cryptic does something stupid that would make creating alt unfun, like increasing the level cap for example.
I've never heard a compelling argument for why it's reasonable that people should be able to get things quickly. In fact, all evidence shows to the contrary - if you give them the things they want too quickly, then they quickly lose interest. Remember, I'm the one that thinks people should just do stuff for fun, and not to chase rewards, but I'm wrong about that and that's why the costs need to be high. Can't really fault the devs for acknowledging the reality of the situation - after all, it's the reasonable thing to do.
If you live in some place like China or Korea, then yeah, MMOs should be all about huge grinds for high-cost items because that's apparently what they like over there. Unfortunately for people who think this is acceptable everywhere, different regions have different demands and expectations for their MMOs.
If you want to get an idea on how far players from various region are willing to go with grinding, click here. In WoW, we have game-time tokens players can buy for gold. One region doesn't earn more gold per kill, quest, etc than the others, and the subscription price is (as far as I know) roughly equal.
As you can see, North American players are far less interested in and/or willing to engage in heavy grinds compared to anywhere else.
When PWE gobbled up Cryptic, the people of STO fought pretty hard to keep most of the scumbag Asian MMO elements out of what's largely an American/European/Australian game. I think they won, because while grindy elements exist, they've been implemented in a rather relaxed manner. One that rewards a dedicated grinder sooner, but also, one that gives people with only a little bit of time something of a break. When running the rep grind in STO, your first daily mark reward gives a decent amount of bonus marks. This helps people from falling too far behind if their time is limited, or if they just want to go out and explore, have fun, etc.
CO could learn a big lesson from STO in that regard.
Does doing all the rampages, dailies, and alerts take an unreasonable amount of time? Depends on who you ask. Doing your two alert dailies shouldn't take long, rampages are generally short, and the mechanon missions are pretty short too - you can get a lot done in just an hour or two. I still think adventure packs should give a few more tokens per completion.
That's a nice best-case scenario. Worst case, the alert queues jam up (which happens more often than it should) or the daily is something awful like bursts and only Pyramid Power shows up. Since most people are lazy and want the quick and easy Radiation Rumble, it can be a long wait. All queues also become a lot slower if your hours aren't during peak. As a late-night player, I run into this problem frequently.
As for adventure packs, they not only need to award more, but they should be broken up. They already pass the threshold of "this takes way too long."
You simply cannot design your game around the needs of people who don't have time to play it, otherwise those will be the only ones playing it... but they don't have time to play it, so nobody will be playing it.
You also cannot design your game around people who have nothing but time, nor can you assume that they all want to spend most of their gametime grinding. When you present a late-arriving casual players with too much to do in order to catch up, there comes a point when they'll gaze up at the HUGE ceiling before them, sigh, and consider just walking away.
Before the unnecessary Heroic price hike, there were still plenty of grindy elements. Nemesis token gear takes awhile. Had they left Heroic gear's cost unchanged, or only increased it slightly, GCR gear would still be another large grind. Heroic gear was starter gear, suitable for casual players or those uninterested in grinds to call "good enough." Those who want more out of their character could use it as a starting point to grind for real gear.
But no. Now, it's "grind, no matter what type of player you are." Thinking that it's acceptable for low-tier crap like Heroic gear to be as grind as it is right now borders on hilarious.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
We must be in different Rampages, I guess. LI and SC take a good 15+ minutes each to complete. You'd be hard pressed to get 4 of those done in an hour, assuming that they pop quickly that is. It's easy to spend hours online just waiting for them to pop.
I can't think of too many people (those with limited play time, that is) who want to spend their hour or so per day just doing this small set of missions over and over. Seems like a way to drive players away.
Does doing all the rampages, dailies, and alerts take an unreasonable amount of time? Depends on who you ask. Doing your two alert dailies shouldn't take long, rampages are generally short, and the mechanon missions are pretty short too - you can get a lot done in just an hour or two. I still think adventure packs should give a few more tokens per completion.
If you live in some place like China or Korea, then yeah, MMOs should be all about huge grinds for high-cost items because that's apparently what they like over there. Unfortunately for people who think this is acceptable everywhere, different regions have different demands and expectations for their MMOs.
The second someone starts to compare CO's grinds to those of eastern MMOs, I lose the ability to take them seriously.
We must be in different Rampages, I guess. LI and SC take a good 15+ minutes each to complete. You'd be hard pressed to get 4 of those done in an hour, assuming that they pop quickly that is. It's easy to spend hours online just waiting for them to pop.
Then don't waste your time doing those rampages. When they're in the que, use your limited play time to take advantage of other sources of SCR. Heck, some SCR sources can be done while you're sitting in the que for those rampages.
I can't think of too many people (those with limited play time, that is) who want to spend their hour or so per day just doing this small set of missions over and over. Seems like a way to drive players away.
Doing the same things over and over again in an MMO is a way to drive players away? Then how do you explain the entire MMO industry? If what you say is true, then shouldn't the entire MMO industry, including the big king, be driving all players away considering the entire thing is based around doing the same thing over and over, quite often the same things every time you log on?
Heck, we were talking about people who make alts weren't we? Do they have different missions to do every time they redo the journey to level 40? Doing the same things over and over is the bread and butter of the genre we're discussing. Why does CO suddenly have to be different?
Guild Wars 1 comes into mind when it comes to getting cheap gears and a low level cap. The gear can easily be bought at level 20 and if you want a better looking armor, you you have to save up a lot of money to get them. The trick here is that those elite armor aren't any better than the cheap level 20 armors in term of armor rating or stats. Combine with the low level cap and the players can get into the end game right away.
So, basically, grinding for vanity items. We have that here too - in fact, the vanity items here cost more than the gear.
As for "players getting into the end game right away"... well, you hit level 40 and now you can get into the end game.
The second someone starts to compare CO's grinds to those of eastern MMOs, I lose the ability to take them seriously.
I guess that's one way to dismiss a valid argument that you just so happen not to agree with.
PWE is a Chinese company. PWE owns Cryptic Studios. It's not unreasonable to think that PWE's Chinese Overlords on high aren't handing down orders, or at least recommendations, on how they want the games under their banner to be managed. While true, CO's grinds are nothing like those seen on other PWE games such as Forsaken World (thankfully), my point is that "long grinds" aren't all MMOs should be about, especially when you take the target demographic into account.
But sure, feel free to dismiss everything else in my post just because you don't like elements of CO being (loosely) compared to Asian MMOs. It's about what I'd expect from you anyway.
PS: Also, please try to understand that the point of what you quoted was to explain that different regions have different tolerances in terms of grinding. American audiences especially are less-accepting of heavy grind content than eastern audiences.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
Aesica.... trying to argue that it's PWE's fault that the game has grind is dumb. I know I use the comparison often, but look at Diablo 2. It was one of the grindiest games I've ever seen. It was made by BLIZZARD. So the idea that being grindy is a foreign thing... no.
Anyways, I left out something in my previous comment comparing the Reps in STO with the reps in CO... The reps in STO all give gear that is usable at end-game, CO reps don't. You can't even get green quality level 40 gear from the low tier reps. Or anything that actually has a level listed AFAICT....
It'd be nice if Champions had a gear upgrade system like the one STO has. It'd solve some of the issues as you'd be able to upgrade gear instead of out leveling it and needing to buy replacements.
Also.... Maybe instead of making Heroic gear cheaper.... add the ability to buy random purple 40 items that are BoE? That way people could get gear that's better than random junk and mission reward gear(most of which is technically levelless, and thus reduces the power of all mods placed in it)
So, basically, grinding for vanity items. We have that here too - in fact, the vanity items here cost more than the gear.
As for "players getting into the end game right away"... well, you hit level 40 and now you can get into the end game.
Yeah, I'm aware of both of these and I enjoy both of these feature, to an extend. Heck, these are the reason why I enjoy playing Champions Online and the pre-Elemental Evil Neverwinter Online. Get the gear right away and just enjoy the end-game.
Wizards of the Coast released an expansion set to their hit game "Magic the Gathering" on May 22, 2015. This set was called "Modern Masters 2015", also referred to as "Modern Masters 2" by players. Modern Masters 2015 (as well as the original) consists entirely of reprints from previous Magic sets that are oftentimes used in their Modern Format (using only cards from a certain point onwards).
Now, why would anyone buy these packs? Because many of the cards reprinted were, and are, incredibly good cards. Cards that have become staples in many decks for years, and because of that have only gotten more and more valuable between players and card sellers alike. In fact, one card in particular from Modern Masters 2015, the Tarmogoyf, was worth about $150 when the set was new. This highly sought-after card, originally printed 8 years prior, became the target card for anyone who opened a pack; getting a Tarmogoyf (or, even better, a FOIL Tarmogoyf which is worth ~$300) guaranteed you were able to either get a nice stack of cash (as there were, and still are, many people willing to drop that kind of money on this card) or whatever other cards they desired.
Now, if Wizards of the Coast reprinted a ton of Tarmogoyfs so that EVERYONE had a Tarmogoyf, then it wouldn't be worth ten cents. Meaning any collector that has an older version of the Tarmogoyf now has a card that's nearly worthless after spending potentially hundreds of dollars obtaining it. So Wizards decided to approach the system differently; run a limited printing of the set, and charge more for the packs. So, each pack of Modern Masters 2015 cost $9.99 USD (a regular pack costs $3.99 USD) and had a limited printing run. Because of these changes, the price of the original Tarmogoyfs didn't go down; In fact, the original Tarmogoyf actually INCREASED in price due to an increase of recognition.
Because of this move, Wizards of the Coast not only made money off of cards they didn't actually spend additional resources into developing for 2.5x the price, but they made the Magic Community happy by stimulating the card economy. What could have been financial losses on the behalf of card vendors turned into a moneymaking extravaganza for those who sold cards, while players were able to get their hands on this beloved card when they were unable to do so previously because there were simply now more of these cards to be had.
What does any of this have to do with Champions Online? If the Boss Costume Unlocks were cheap to unlock, then anyone who farmed for their Valerian Scarlet tights would feel slighted, and its value would plummet. Suddenly every schmuck has Gunblades, which would appear to someone who ran Resistance over and over as a middle finger.
By keeping the price high, they make sure the market isn't flooded by these unlocks. Additionally, you can still get the drops the good ol' fashioned way; I don't know the exact math or probability, but the number of Alerts you need to run to accumulate 975 SCR is probably a similar number of Alerts before you'd theoretically get a costume drop from an Alert.
As someone who's never gotten a costume drop from an Alert boss (or any other boss for that matter... I'm not a very lucky guy) I by no means mind this addition. It just adds the possibility to remove the RNG from the equation.
And since the RNG is more often against me than not, I welcome it.
PS. On a side note, with the changes made to Heroic Gear, using Mercenary Gear at level 40 becomes a lot more feasible (at least until you get your Heroic Gear). Before the change, would rather have gotten rank 4 mods from a lockbox than a piece of Merc gear.
It makes sense, if you don't think about it.
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Most often Slice N Dice@zap-the-eradicator in-game.
Except that many of the costumes put in the vendor at 975SCR were either A ) accidentally removed from the drop list years ago and never fixed, or B ) not even available as drops to begin with... plus the fact that the vast majority of the ones that were actually dropped were regularly sold on the AH for 500G or less which takes significantly less time and effort to acquire than 975SCR...
With the current setup you can get in a single day's worth of dailies: TA: 15SCR + 12GCR Alerts: 10SCR Unity: 13SCR Mechanon: 6SCR AP/CS: 180SCR (5SCR per run, 4 runs each, 3 APs & 3CSs... and a whole lot of time...) Total: 224SCR + 12GCR
But lets be realistic... your not going to run all 12AP/CS runs in a single day, and odds are your not even going to bother with 1 of them... so that drops the total down to 44SCR per day in a relatively short time... 27SCR if you don't run TA...
So I guess if they were balancing around the maximum per day from dailies then the current price points make some sense... but from a realistic standpoint you're only going to get between 27SCR and 44SCR per day. So that's 4 to 6 days per piece of Heroics, and 22 to 36 days per unlock... That is a LOT of time... I can accept the cost on Heroics far more than I can accept the cost on costumes and travel powers...
"In fact, the original Tarmogoyf actually INCREASED in price due to an increase of recognition."
Not just recognition MTG does a set rotation thing where some cards aren't playable in certain league events. This only really applies to tournaments, but a lot of players use these rules outside tournaments too.
Aesica.... trying to argue that it's PWE's fault that the game has grind is dumb. I know I use the comparison often, but look at Diablo 2. It was one of the grindiest games I've ever seen. It was made by BLIZZARD. So the idea that being grindy is a foreign thing... no.
D2's grind was actually fun, because even if you didn't get the drop you wanted, you generally got a drop that was cool/fun/useable/character-inspiring in short order. (And when we're talking running an area for items, we're talking ~5 minutes or less per boss kill generally).
I mean, sure, it was grindy. But it was *the right* way to do grind. (Also, everything was tradeable).
Anyways, I left out something in my previous comment comparing the Reps in STO with the reps in CO... The reps in STO all give gear that is usable at end-game, CO reps don't. You can't even get green quality level 40 gear from the low tier reps.
Well, if you want stuff usable at end-game that's also usable when leveling, you're pretty much limited to stuff that doesn't have an intrinsic level, like Armadillo gear. Which is (a) pretty easy to get, and (b) adequate for end-game stuff.
Aesica.... trying to argue that it's PWE's fault that the game has grind is dumb. I know I use the comparison often, but look at Diablo 2. It was one of the grindiest games I've ever seen. It was made by BLIZZARD. So the idea that being grindy is a foreign thing... no.
D2's grind was actually fun, because even if you didn't get the drop you wanted, you generally got a drop that was cool/fun/useable/character-inspiring in short order. (And when we're talking running an area for items, we're talking ~5 minutes or less per boss kill generally).
I mean, sure, it was grindy. But it was *the right* way to do grind. (Also, everything was tradeable).
Yeah.... EVERYTHING was tradable, even gear you stole from someone by being a PKer... I kinda think Diablo2 is WHY later games did gear binding.
Thing is while you would always get "something tradable", one thing D2 did NOT do was have a floor on drops. You might get a Level 6 unique from killing Diablo and a level 60 magic armor.
Also, you had no idea WHAT would drop, at all. Some item types were no where near as valuable as others. Getting something does not mean you have enough to trade for what you really want.
IIRC, it was actually possible to mod the loot tables to add a floor. But in stock it has a floor of 0(aka common trash that any freshly created character can use). One of D2's weaknesses was the way ilvl was the max you could get, not the actual level. I think part of the reason is the way the game did random items. D2 item affixes had levels associated. Any weapon with "of Light" had the same bonus of +1 light radius and +15 attack rating. It didn't matter if the item was a regular low-level sword or a high level elite weapon.
Aesica.... trying to argue that it's PWE's fault that the game has grind is dumb. I know I use the comparison often, but look at Diablo 2. It was one of the grindiest games I've ever seen. It was made by BLIZZARD. So the idea that being grindy is a foreign thing... no.
The point I was mainly trying to make is that players from different regions, on average, have different degrees of tolerance for grindy content, with American players being among the least tolerant of such grinds. There are statistics everywhere that support this. Since CO has a large population of American players, it's safe to assume that they want a more than just grind for this so they can grind for that, then grind just to grind because grind everything! You can see this in altoholics who have stated that they're just checking out on gearing up fresh 40s, and instead, just moving on to the next character. A heavy grind for basic, entry-level endgame gear isn't fun, so they're skipping it. I am too.
Anyways, I left out something in my previous comment comparing the Reps in STO with the reps in CO... The reps in STO all give gear that is usable at end-game, CO reps don't. You can't even get green quality level 40 gear from the low tier reps. Or anything that actually has a level listed AFAICT....
It'd be nice if Champions had a gear upgrade system like the one STO has. It'd solve some of the issues as you'd be able to upgrade gear instead of out leveling it and needing to buy replacements.
Also.... Maybe instead of making Heroic gear cheaper.... add the ability to buy random purple 40 items that are BoE? That way people could get gear that's better than random junk and mission reward gear(most of which is technically levelless, and thus reduces the power of all mods placed in it)
The problem here is that STO's flat-progression gear system doesn't really have much of a purpose in a game like CO. If people did more than just alerts all the way to 40, gearing up along the way would work just fine. That's actually not the problem. The problem is that CO's entry-level endgame set has had its prices bumped up so high that it's no longer reasonably obtainable. Your SCR, resources, etc are best saved up and used for other things.
Regarding STO's flat gear system: In STO, yesterday's gearset fits nicely on a bridge officer, ensuring that it's still useful. Yesterday's space set may or may not be appealing for a modern build, based on what type of ship you want to blow things up with. In CO, gear is largely just numbers--stat sticks and mod slots. Sure, some have small perks (such as the bonus threat + shielding on nemesis gloves), but it's mainly about bigger numbers. In order for a flat gear system to work for CO, the CO devs will have to be as creative as the STO devs when it comes to designing new sets. Even then, they have less to work with since damage type is determined by power selection not weapon choice, characters don't have ~8 different weapon slots, etc.
STO's upgrade system just doesn't belong in CO. From what I recall, it was added along with the level cap increase, because if they hadn't, the jump from 50 to 60 would've invalidated a lot of content and gear.
Except that many of the costumes put in the vendor at 975SCR were either A ) accidentally removed from the drop list years ago and never fixed, or B ) not even available as drops to begin with... plus the fact that the vast majority of the ones that were actually dropped were regularly sold on the AH for 500G or less which takes significantly less time and effort to acquire than 975SCR...
With the current setup you can get in a single day's worth of dailies: TA: 15SCR + 12GCR Alerts: 10SCR Unity: 13SCR Mechanon: 6SCR AP/CS: 180SCR (5SCR per run, 4 runs each, 3 APs & 3CSs... and a whole lot of time...) Total: 224SCR + 12GCR
But lets be realistic... your not going to run all 12AP/CS runs in a single day, and odds are your not even going to bother with 1 of them... so that drops the total down to 44SCR per day in a relatively short time... 27SCR if you don't run TA...
So I guess if they were balancing around the maximum per day from dailies then the current price points make some sense... but from a realistic standpoint you're only going to get between 27SCR and 44SCR per day. So that's 4 to 6 days per piece of Heroics, and 22 to 36 days per unlock... That is a LOT of time... I can accept the cost on Heroics far more than I can accept the cost on costumes and travel powers...
I'm actually more okay with expensive costumes & unlocks than I am with heroic gear costs. Since they're full-account unlocks, you'll only ever be grinding up for them once (unless you own multiple accounts and really want -everything- on all of them...). Heroic gear though? That's just a starting point to enter endgame content.
A fresh 40's most obvious routes of obtaining SCR are alerts and unity (I'm not even familiar with Mechanon), which amounts to 23 SCR per day assuming they do everything. The unity dailies can really weigh down on a person, so they might not do those every day. An altoholic especially might prefer to do just alerts, bringing their earnings down to 10 per day. APs (as you said) aren't likely to be run at all, as you only get 10 per and they take a lot of time to complete. I don't even see why they need caps (4/day) given the agonizing amount of time required to complete them--anyone who actually wants to run them all day deserves what they earn.
Anyway yeah, TA is out of the question for the average person without at least heroic gear, unless you have a group (friends) willing to carry you. Anyone who thinks their fresh 40 DPS AT is actually contributing should be glad the game doesn't have DPS meters. If it did, they might find their spot being filled by someone with bigger numbers after the first few wipes.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
I'm honestly curious as to why they felt the need to reduce the SCR reward rate from Unity... it's been cut in half from what it once was... and each mission gives a differing amount... timed unity missions give 1SCR non-timed give a random amount from 1 to 5... and the bonus gives 3... so that 13 I posted isn't even a guarantee, it could be more or it could be less depending on how many timed missions you get and your luck with the rest.
^ If I had to guess, they probably wanted to emphasize group content over "single player" content. Still, invalidating content, no matter what it is, offers less of a choice to players to play how they want because "trust us, we know what's fun. This is how you should be doing it."
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
(I'm not even familiar with Mechanon), It's a group of missions that used to have their own rep. Heat Wave is actually non-combat(mostly, you might have to fight one or more of the patients, but even if that happens just block until they explode... or KO them, the patients are weak). I do Heat Wave daily just because it's so easy. The others vary in difficulty. But if you team for them they're pretty easy.
""The problem is that CO's entry-level endgame set"" The fact that this is phrased in the singular is a big part of the problem IMO. It's why I suggested gear upgrades. That would give people an alternate method of acquiring gear.
"A heavy grind for basic, entry-level endgame gear isn't fun" I don't think Heroic gear is meant to be "basic entry-level". Are there better things? yeah. But I have to agree with Spinny. Entry level is having level 40 gear. Heroic gear is good, but it's not tHAT much better than random purples.
To be completely honest... Heroics isn't actually the entry level end-game gear... Mercs is... The problem though is that Mercs despite being the actual entry level gear has since it's introduction been harder to acquire than Heroics which is why Heroics became the defacto entry-level and why mercs was given such a bad rep among the playerbase... IF they are going to leave Heroics at the new price point then I must insist that Mercs be made more widely available... The other problem with mercs is the fact that there's a large number of lv10-39 Mercs gear floating around and comparitively less lv40 Mercs... this is due to people who don't know better openin Merc boxes with characters who are not level 40... If Mercs leveled with the player that would make ita far more desirable entry level gear than it is now since it wouldn't matter if some level 10 who just opened their first lockbox got a merc box and opened it... someone will find use from it even if it's not that level 10...
Mercenary gear is available at the Questionite store now, so it's already widely available, and you get to choose which piece you get, not like the lockbox stuff.
Mercenary gear is available at the Questionite store now, so it's already widely available, and you get to choose which piece you get, not like the lockbox stuff.
merc gear has been aviable in the questionite store for as long as I can remember, all that ahcnged recienly is the price was reduced by 100K
In all things, a calm heart must prevail.
Member of Paragon Dawn: Because some people like friendly helpful communities.
Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
To be completely honest... Heroics isn't actually the entry level end-game gear... Mercs is... The problem though is that Mercs despite being the actual entry level gear has since it's introduction been harder to acquire than Heroics which is why Heroics became the defacto entry-level and why mercs was given such a bad rep among the playerbase...
Oh, ha. I'd actually completely forgotten Merc gear existed. I remember seeing it briefly in the Q store, but upon seeing the price, my first thought was literally, "LOL you have got to be kidding me." Even if it's only 50k questionite now, I still feel like that's way too much considering:
1) I can only refine 8k per day. 50k / 8k = a week's worth of grind per piece. That's 3 weeks of grind total, all for entry-level gear. Over at world of warcraft, I can jump into Ashran or Tanaan Jungle and be mostly geared up with entry-level endgame gear in about a day or two. In STO, I can run a few of the endgame-level episodes for a similar result.
2) The scaling set gear (Armadillo, etc) is only 11k per piece. The scaling gear also has the advantage of being useful while leveling, which is great for someone who doesn't have a bunch of heirlooms yet. At 33k for all 3 primary pieces, that's only 5 days of grind. I get that Merc gear is better, but questionite is valuable, and I have to ask myself if it's "better" enough to warrant spending 150k of it rather than 33k. With that kind of difference, I can live with Armadillo primaries for the time being.
Having said that, CO's endgame gear acquisition system needs a reassessment. I'd probably price things like this:
- Mercenary Primaries: Add as bound rewards for completing adventure packs at max level. Different pieces should be tied to different adventure packs so that players don't just run their favorite or the fastest one over and over, but rather, so they can experience several different ones based on what they want. Thus, the rewards should be a choice between 3 different pieces of Merc gear or the current 10 SCR bundle. Not in a random reward box! I'd also probably make the adventure pack SCR reward closer to 15 or 20 because APs are LONG.
- Heroic Primaries: Roughly 50% of their current price at least. Even if they were basically free, there's still a lot of things for people to spend SCR on. Sinking it isn't going to be a problem anytime soon.
- All GCR Items: Remove the SCR costs. I realize SCR was probably added as part of the GCR price to keep everyone running alert and other SCR content hamster wheels, however players are going to be doing this anyway because questionite is also a reward from these same sources: alerts, rampages, APs, etc. With all the costume unlocks, action figures, random devices, etc in the SCR vender, players will still have things to sink their SCR into for quite some time. Since Heroic gear isn't bound, they could even just buy pieces of that and sell it on the exchange for extra resources. Point being, there's little reason to have a SCR cost on GCR items, and all it does is force GCR rewards to compete with SCR rewards (such as Heroic gear) for the same currency.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
The high cost on mercs just adds to my point about it not being widely available... currently it's still faster to get Heroics than Mercs for most... due to the 8k/day refine limit... granted anyone with multiple characters can refine 8k/day per character and have it sooner... Drop the cost of merc primaries down to 25k Q and/or add them to the Until Recog vendor as an alternative method of getting them.... mercs is supposed to be the actual entry level endgame gear so it really should be the easiet to get...
The high cost on mercs just adds to my point about it not being widely available... currently it's still faster to get Heroics than Mercs for most... due to the 8k/day refine limit... granted anyone with multiple characters can refine 8k/day per character and have it sooner... Drop the cost of merc primaries down to 25k Q and/or add them to the Until Recog vendor as an alternative method of getting them.... mercs is supposed to be the actual entry level endgame gear so it really should be the easiet to get...
I considered the until vendor, but given the fact that SCR can be converted to UR, it's still effectively putting a SCR pricetag on it. As for cuting the questionite price to 25k, that'd be better, but it's still high enough that I'd probably pass on it. I really do think that putting Merc gear into the AP completion rewards is a great way to go, as it lets players complete them for a meaningful reward right after hitting 40. Personally, I think it feels really good to complete a fairly lengthy set of missions like that for a really good reward instead of just vendor trash all the time. APs are largely avoided because, aside from perhaps lucky costume unlocks, they're too much time for not enough. This kind of thing would change that, I suspect.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
I considered the until vendor, but given the fact that SCR can be converted to UR, it's still effectively putting a SCR pricetag on it. As for cuting the questionite price to 25k, that'd be better, but it's still high enough that I'd probably pass on it. I really do think that putting Merc gear into the AP completion rewards is a great way to go, as it lets players complete them for a meaningful reward right after hitting 40. Personally, I think it feels really good to complete a fairly lengthy set of missions like that for a really good reward instead of just vendor trash all the time. APs are largely avoided because, aside from perhaps lucky costume unlocks, they're too much time for not enough. This kind of thing would change that, I suspect.
Back when the best gear came from (elite) adventure packs, people played them. A lot. It was sufficiently attractive that Cryptic actually required a sub or purchase of an adventure pack to access them.
Honestly, the problem is that On Alert screwed everything up. Changing just about everything at once usually has the effect. There was a time where people used to do missions, and used to actually use the mission gear rewards from completing said missions. Now, everyone started grinding Alerts to level, and the devs changed the game to fit what seemed to be the "popular" trend: the same old thing!
Pretty much the same thing has happened in World of Warcraft. I used to play years ago, and not-too-long ago I picked it back up (and had to backtrack 3 expansions-worth of content) and continued where I left off on my old character. Then, I decided to check out the new tutorial and entry areas, so I made a new character. As I leveled the character, I noticed, as I progressed through levels, I ended up seeing fewer and fewer players doing content in the area. This was in stark contrast with my experience with WoW previously, and I was wondering where everyone was. I knew the server wasn't empty by any means; in fact, there was a much larger amount of players around the major cities than in the past (which says a lot, since they were always pretty crowded).
Turns out the reason is simple: RDF. The Random Dungeon Finder. In the past, if you wanted to run a dungeon, you needed to be in a guild, or ask over the regional chat to persuade people to run the dungeon with you for potential loot and to complete quests. Now, World of Warcraft has the Random Dungeon Finder, which will assign you to an at-level group automatically to run a dungeon/raid. The thing is, dungeon drops are generally much better than quest reward drops, and repeating dungeons would net you a higher stream of XP than simply questing. Now, everyone just runs the RDF over and over.
And this sort of grind-mentality has bled over to other aspects of WoW, too. The Darkmoon Faire, which had been always a little grindy, but was mostly just for cosmetic or auxiliary items, has since changed to consist of minigames that reward a special currency when completed, could be done daily, and can be redeemed for "Heirloom Gear" that leveled with your character and is Account-Bound (sound familiar?). Suddenly you had to log in every day to grind these daily minigames to accumulate these tokens in order to work up to these items that are invaluable to new characters and used nearly ubiquitously.
Which brings us full-circle. This isn't an issue in CO, this is an issue in MMOs by the large. If you can really call it an "issue"; it's a playstyle that appeals to more casual, less hard-thinking players as it offers an easy-to-understand formula.
Small Time Spent + Ceaseless Repetition = Profit
No need to worry about memorizing dungeon mechanics, or planning how you're going to acquire your choice gear and outfit your characters! Just do the same thing over and over until you hoard enough/puke! And want to NOT have to grind so much? Just pay some money, even if you're already paying monthly for the game (like is the case with World of Warcraft)!
It makes sense, if you don't think about it.
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Most often Slice N Dice@zap-the-eradicator in-game.
The thing is, dungeon drops are generally much better than quest reward drops, and repeating dungeons would net you a higher stream of XP than simply questing. Now, everyone just runs the RDF over and over.
This seems to be largely an imbalance due to the dungeons being too easy for the reward.
In CO mission reward gear is inherently bad due to not having an assigned level. Socketed gear in CO reduces the power of any mods slotted to the level of the gear. BUT level-less gear is treated as having a level of 0 for this purpose and will actually reduce the power of rank 1 mods. If you're a lowbie who doesn't have anymods better than 1 it's no big deal, but at 40 the difference is very noticeable, especially when it's gear with multiple sockets. Thus mission reward gear is bad in multiple ways, not just base stats.
"but given the fact that SCR can be converted to UR, it's still effectively putting a SCR pricetag on it." lol wut?
It's easy to grind Until recog..... just run Serpent Lantern... It's not a mission reward, but you'll get a lot from random drops.
Yeah, but it's even easier to just grind SCR and convert it down. Unless I'm mistaken, 1 SCR converts to 5 UR. I don't think it was always like that, but it has been ever since they installed the dedicated currency exchange NPC in the recognition building. Hence why I compared it to having a SCR pricetag.
Honestly, the problem is that On Alert screwed everything up. Changing just about everything at once usually has the effect. There was a time where people used to do missions, and used to actually use the mission gear rewards from completing said missions. Now, everyone started grinding Alerts to level, and the devs changed the game to fit what seemed to be the "popular" trend: the same old thing!
Pretty much the same thing has happened in World of Warcraft. I used to play years ago, and not-too-long ago I picked it back up (and had to backtrack 3 expansions-worth of content) and continued where I left off on my old character. Then, I decided to check out the new tutorial and entry areas, so I made a new character. As I leveled the character, I noticed, as I progressed through levels, I ended up seeing fewer and fewer players doing content in the area. This was in stark contrast with my experience with WoW previously, and I was wondering where everyone was. I knew the server wasn't empty by any means; in fact, there was a much larger amount of players around the major cities than in the past (which says a lot, since they were always pretty crowded).
In WoW, questing is at least reasonable. Originally it was as broken and unpleasant as it is in CO: You talk to some NPC who tells you to talk to two other NPCs. Each of those two NPCs are far away from each other, and each has their own set of quests pointing at far-apart objectives all over the place. At least one of these objectives leads you to two more NPCs on the other side of the area. Basically, questing in CO is all over the place and lacks a decent flow. In modern WoW, questing is less about running around and more about actually doing things.
Now, WoW questgivers offer a handful of quests with nearby objectives. After finishing those, you're pointed at the next cluster of questgivers some distance away, and it repeats, as you gradually progress across the map. It's totally reasonable and even enjoyable to level through quests under this formula. The only reason the group finder is favored is because:
1) You don't have to think as much. Some of the quest text can be "cryptic" (hur hur) and hard to figure out. All you have to do in queued content is follow the group zerg and massacre everything that gets in your way.
2) You don't have to do as much. Why force yourself to run around and interact with objects, NPCs, etc when you can just park in a capital city and queue repeatedly?
3) The gear is better. Granted that may not matter much since CO doesn't give you gear from alerts, but that doesn't stop people from favoring queues over questing. So, rather than staying caught up with your current level, the typical alert baby will eventually emerge at 40 in either heirlooms or swaddled in the starting gear they got from the powerhouse trainer and the purple gang quest chain they ran up until hitting level 10. They might be wearing a few pieces of 11k questionite gear (Armadillo set, etc) as well.
And this sort of grind-mentality has bled over to other aspects of WoW, too. The Darkmoon Faire, which had been always a little grindy, but was mostly just for cosmetic or auxiliary items, has since changed to consist of minigames that reward a special currency when completed, could be done daily, and can be redeemed for "Heirloom Gear" that leveled with your character and is Account-Bound (sound familiar?). Suddenly you had to log in every day to grind these daily minigames to accumulate these tokens in order to work up to these items that are invaluable to new characters and used nearly ubiquitously.
This was really only a "problem" at first. And I say it as "problem" in quotes because people saw the vast list of goodies and wanted them all instantly, even though that wasn't what Blizzard had intended. They wanted the Darkmoon Faire to be an event you could continue to participate in every time it was open. As for the heirloom gear, there's multiple ways to obtain it--apparently just like there is in CO. It's not even as grindy as you're implying, either. And yes, I can safely I say this as someone with just about every heirloom in the game.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
"In WoW, questing is at least reasonable. Originally it was as broken and unpleasant as it is in CO: You talk to some NPC who tells you to talk to two other NPCs. Each of those two NPCs are far away from each other, and each has their own set of quests pointing at far-apart objectives all over the place. At least one of these objectives leads you to two more NPCs on the other side of the area. Basically, questing in CO is all over the place and lacks a decent flow. In modern WoW, questing is less about running around and more about actually doing things."
Are you sure we're playing the same game? If I was to make a list of "stereotypes" for CO quests, There'd be four.
1: Introduction quests... These tell you to go talk to a different NPC who might be in a different region. Such as getting a quest to go talk to people in Canada.
2: Massacre quests. Go Kill X number of guys. Or go kill guys and collect things they drop.
3: interact quests. These are the most annoying because they require you to find objects and the objects aren't always in the open.
4: Boss dungeons. Enter the lair of the villain and take him/her out. May or may not be open world. If open world can be glitchy if two players who are not teamed do it at the same time.
It's actually very RARE to find a quest in CO where the objectives are widely scattered.
For example, one of the quests in Lemuria is to find several radioactive nuclear warheads. It has a timer too. You need to find them, deal with whatever enemies might be in the way, then return to the Aegir before the timer runs out... or you faint from radiation exposure. Yeah, the warheads give you a DoT as long as you hold them.
Then there's a short quest chain for rescuing a mini sub. The first quest is to find the oxygen tank that go knocked loose in the crash. It's simple, but it has a timer. The second is to kill enemy things while the crew of the sub restart the engines. No moving required, just kill anything that gets in attack range.
In the Desert area, there's a lot of quests related to the prison there. Viper masterminded a plot to break out the prisoners and use them to bolster Viper's ranks. One of the missions is to collect documents that Viper gave to the prisoners. this is done by wandering the quest area, and beating up any prisoners you find and hoping they drop what you're looking for. You get up to 3, but not often.
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Well, if you can't enjoy making alts without being able to gear them in heroic or whatever quickly once they hit level 40, then I'm glad that you're going to stop doing that when your stockpile runs out. Would hate to think that you're choosing to do something that forces yourself to have less fun.
Blatantly false.
Balancing completion times for content around people who don't have time to play your game isn't really smart.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
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500 Zen = 5 Cosmic Keys of Power = 500 G = 2 Crates of Questionite = 100,000 Questionite (If you're lucky) = 250 Zen (At the present 400 Q per 1 Zen exchange rate)
If the CO economy was populated by accountants or business people, that chain would be about 10:9 if you were in a rush and wanted to cycle everything immediately. (It would actually be profitable because the market would settle around the average Q crate opening rather than having two max drops.)
The reason it comes out to 2:1 at best is because CO is not populated by accountants and business people. It's populated by immature thinkers. Frankly the real life education system doesn't teach much about economics or handling money, usually when it does it's some far-left college professor telling students of some evil market manipulation scheme the billionaires are able to pull off because they have enough money, but it wont work in general, 'only if you had enough money'. (Reality is, if it fails for a poor person it would fail for a rich person and the professor is pushing an agenda.) So, they hear this, and try to apply those principles in a game world where they are effectively far richer.
The AH is one example. Often times the prices get raised by re-sellers who think they can provide a retail service even though the AH itself functions as one. So, they buy the 'low' items, post high, and when their post goes the whole week and doesn't sell, they try again. Or spam the zone and trade chats.
My only advice is just learn the quirks of these people and take their money. On the above conversions, work from right to left as much as possible. Items bought from other players would be to the right of G, so farming the G directly and buying Heroic gear would be moving left to right. You'd have to farm something of value, sell it for G. If you then used the G to buy Heroic Gear, it's one move right to left and another left to right, so you break even. You could also farm something, sell it for G, buy a Key, open a box, and selling the contents of the box for G until you get Legion gear, which would be two right-to-left moves with a gamble.
I'm only an off-and-on player though, so I've only gotten the 'expert economics players' to buy me two freeform slots and three MK II vehicles.
I've never heard a compelling argument for why it's reasonable that people should be able to get things quickly. In fact, all evidence shows to the contrary - if you give them the things they want too quickly, then they quickly lose interest. Remember, I'm the one that thinks people should just do stuff for fun, and not to chase rewards, but I'm wrong about that and that's why the costs need to be high. Can't really fault the devs for acknowledging the reality of the situation - after all, it's the reasonable thing to do.
Does doing all the rampages, dailies, and alerts take an unreasonable amount of time? Depends on who you ask. Doing your two alert dailies shouldn't take long, rampages are generally short, and the mechanon missions are pretty short too - you can get a lot done in just an hour or two. I still think adventure packs should give a few more tokens per completion.
You simply cannot design your game around the needs of people who don't have time to play it, otherwise those will be the only ones playing it... but they don't have time to play it, so nobody will be playing it.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Yeah, grinding rep in STO has two purposes once you've reached the top rep tier: getting gear from the rep, or converting rep currency to Dilithium(what STO has instead of Questionite). But STO doesn't really have a tiered rep system the way CO does. Gear sets from Omega rep(the first one) are usable at endgame the same as gear from the latest rep(Terran Empire). In CO the first rep(MCPD) has weak gear that's barely useful early game and utterly worthless late game. But MCPD rep is easy to get tokens for, just massacre random mooks. Top tier is GCR, which is hard.... but it also has the best stuff.
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People who want better than Heroic still have their long grind that will "keep their interest". You're hardly giving them "everything" by giving them Heroic.
If you want to get an idea on how far players from various region are willing to go with grinding, click here. In WoW, we have game-time tokens players can buy for gold. One region doesn't earn more gold per kill, quest, etc than the others, and the subscription price is (as far as I know) roughly equal.
As you can see, North American players are far less interested in and/or willing to engage in heavy grinds compared to anywhere else.
When PWE gobbled up Cryptic, the people of STO fought pretty hard to keep most of the scumbag Asian MMO elements out of what's largely an American/European/Australian game. I think they won, because while grindy elements exist, they've been implemented in a rather relaxed manner. One that rewards a dedicated grinder sooner, but also, one that gives people with only a little bit of time something of a break. When running the rep grind in STO, your first daily mark reward gives a decent amount of bonus marks. This helps people from falling too far behind if their time is limited, or if they just want to go out and explore, have fun, etc.
CO could learn a big lesson from STO in that regard. That's a nice best-case scenario. Worst case, the alert queues jam up (which happens more often than it should) or the daily is something awful like bursts and only Pyramid Power shows up. Since most people are lazy and want the quick and easy Radiation Rumble, it can be a long wait. All queues also become a lot slower if your hours aren't during peak. As a late-night player, I run into this problem frequently.
As for adventure packs, they not only need to award more, but they should be broken up. They already pass the threshold of "this takes way too long." You also cannot design your game around people who have nothing but time, nor can you assume that they all want to spend most of their gametime grinding. When you present a late-arriving casual players with too much to do in order to catch up, there comes a point when they'll gaze up at the HUGE ceiling before them, sigh, and consider just walking away.
Before the unnecessary Heroic price hike, there were still plenty of grindy elements. Nemesis token gear takes awhile. Had they left Heroic gear's cost unchanged, or only increased it slightly, GCR gear would still be another large grind. Heroic gear was starter gear, suitable for casual players or those uninterested in grinds to call "good enough." Those who want more out of their character could use it as a starting point to grind for real gear.
But no. Now, it's "grind, no matter what type of player you are." Thinking that it's acceptable for low-tier crap like Heroic gear to be as grind as it is right now borders on hilarious.
I can't think of too many people (those with limited play time, that is) who want to spend their hour or so per day just doing this small set of missions over and over. Seems like a way to drive players away.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Doing the same things over and over again in an MMO is a way to drive players away? Then how do you explain the entire MMO industry? If what you say is true, then shouldn't the entire MMO industry, including the big king, be driving all players away considering the entire thing is based around doing the same thing over and over, quite often the same things every time you log on?
Heck, we were talking about people who make alts weren't we? Do they have different missions to do every time they redo the journey to level 40? Doing the same things over and over is the bread and butter of the genre we're discussing. Why does CO suddenly have to be different?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
As for "players getting into the end game right away"... well, you hit level 40 and now you can get into the end game.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
PWE is a Chinese company. PWE owns Cryptic Studios. It's not unreasonable to think that PWE's Chinese Overlords on high aren't handing down orders, or at least recommendations, on how they want the games under their banner to be managed. While true, CO's grinds are nothing like those seen on other PWE games such as Forsaken World (thankfully), my point is that "long grinds" aren't all MMOs should be about, especially when you take the target demographic into account.
But sure, feel free to dismiss everything else in my post just because you don't like elements of CO being (loosely) compared to Asian MMOs. It's about what I'd expect from you anyway.
PS: Also, please try to understand that the point of what you quoted was to explain that different regions have different tolerances in terms of grinding. American audiences especially are less-accepting of heavy grind content than eastern audiences.
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It'd be nice if Champions had a gear upgrade system like the one STO has. It'd solve some of the issues as you'd be able to upgrade gear instead of out leveling it and needing to buy replacements.
Also.... Maybe instead of making Heroic gear cheaper.... add the ability to buy random purple 40 items that are BoE? That way people could get gear that's better than random junk and mission reward gear(most of which is technically levelless, and thus reduces the power of all mods placed in it)
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Now, why would anyone buy these packs? Because many of the cards reprinted were, and are, incredibly good cards. Cards that have become staples in many decks for years, and because of that have only gotten more and more valuable between players and card sellers alike. In fact, one card in particular from Modern Masters 2015, the Tarmogoyf, was worth about $150 when the set was new. This highly sought-after card, originally printed 8 years prior, became the target card for anyone who opened a pack; getting a Tarmogoyf (or, even better, a FOIL Tarmogoyf which is worth ~$300) guaranteed you were able to either get a nice stack of cash (as there were, and still are, many people willing to drop that kind of money on this card) or whatever other cards they desired.
Now, if Wizards of the Coast reprinted a ton of Tarmogoyfs so that EVERYONE had a Tarmogoyf, then it wouldn't be worth ten cents. Meaning any collector that has an older version of the Tarmogoyf now has a card that's nearly worthless after spending potentially hundreds of dollars obtaining it. So Wizards decided to approach the system differently; run a limited printing of the set, and charge more for the packs. So, each pack of Modern Masters 2015 cost $9.99 USD (a regular pack costs $3.99 USD) and had a limited printing run. Because of these changes, the price of the original Tarmogoyfs didn't go down; In fact, the original Tarmogoyf actually INCREASED in price due to an increase of recognition.
Because of this move, Wizards of the Coast not only made money off of cards they didn't actually spend additional resources into developing for 2.5x the price, but they made the Magic Community happy by stimulating the card economy. What could have been financial losses on the behalf of card vendors turned into a moneymaking extravaganza for those who sold cards, while players were able to get their hands on this beloved card when they were unable to do so previously because there were simply now more of these cards to be had.
What does any of this have to do with Champions Online? If the Boss Costume Unlocks were cheap to unlock, then anyone who farmed for their Valerian Scarlet tights would feel slighted, and its value would plummet. Suddenly every schmuck has Gunblades, which would appear to someone who ran Resistance over and over as a middle finger.
By keeping the price high, they make sure the market isn't flooded by these unlocks. Additionally, you can still get the drops the good ol' fashioned way; I don't know the exact math or probability, but the number of Alerts you need to run to accumulate 975 SCR is probably a similar number of Alerts before you'd theoretically get a costume drop from an Alert.
As someone who's never gotten a costume drop from an Alert boss (or any other boss for that matter... I'm not a very lucky guy) I by no means mind this addition. It just adds the possibility to remove the RNG from the equation.
And since the RNG is more often against me than not, I welcome it.
PS. On a side note, with the changes made to Heroic Gear, using Mercenary Gear at level 40 becomes a lot more feasible (at least until you get your Heroic Gear). Before the change, would rather have gotten rank 4 mods from a lockbox than a piece of Merc gear.
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Most often Slice N Dice@zap-the-eradicator in-game.
With the current setup you can get in a single day's worth of dailies:
TA: 15SCR + 12GCR
Alerts: 10SCR
Unity: 13SCR
Mechanon: 6SCR
AP/CS: 180SCR (5SCR per run, 4 runs each, 3 APs & 3CSs... and a whole lot of time...)
Total: 224SCR + 12GCR
But lets be realistic... your not going to run all 12AP/CS runs in a single day, and odds are your not even going to bother with 1 of them... so that drops the total down to 44SCR per day in a relatively short time... 27SCR if you don't run TA...
So I guess if they were balancing around the maximum per day from dailies then the current price points make some sense... but from a realistic standpoint you're only going to get between 27SCR and 44SCR per day. So that's 4 to 6 days per piece of Heroics, and 22 to 36 days per unlock... That is a LOT of time... I can accept the cost on Heroics far more than I can accept the cost on costumes and travel powers...
Not just recognition MTG does a set rotation thing where some cards aren't playable in certain league events. This only really applies to tournaments, but a lot of players use these rules outside tournaments too.
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I mean, sure, it was grindy. But it was *the right* way to do grind. (Also, everything was tradeable).
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Thing is while you would always get "something tradable", one thing D2 did NOT do was have a floor on drops. You might get a Level 6 unique from killing Diablo and a level 60 magic armor.
Also, you had no idea WHAT would drop, at all. Some item types were no where near as valuable as others. Getting something does not mean you have enough to trade for what you really want.
IIRC, it was actually possible to mod the loot tables to add a floor. But in stock it has a floor of 0(aka common trash that any freshly created character can use). One of D2's weaknesses was the way ilvl was the max you could get, not the actual level. I think part of the reason is the way the game did random items. D2 item affixes had levels associated. Any weapon with "of Light" had the same bonus of +1 light radius and +15 attack rating. It didn't matter if the item was a regular low-level sword or a high level elite weapon.
Yes, I used to be a D2 modder.
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Regarding STO's flat gear system: In STO, yesterday's gearset fits nicely on a bridge officer, ensuring that it's still useful. Yesterday's space set may or may not be appealing for a modern build, based on what type of ship you want to blow things up with. In CO, gear is largely just numbers--stat sticks and mod slots. Sure, some have small perks (such as the bonus threat + shielding on nemesis gloves), but it's mainly about bigger numbers. In order for a flat gear system to work for CO, the CO devs will have to be as creative as the STO devs when it comes to designing new sets. Even then, they have less to work with since damage type is determined by power selection not weapon choice, characters don't have ~8 different weapon slots, etc.
STO's upgrade system just doesn't belong in CO. From what I recall, it was added along with the level cap increase, because if they hadn't, the jump from 50 to 60 would've invalidated a lot of content and gear. I'm actually more okay with expensive costumes & unlocks than I am with heroic gear costs. Since they're full-account unlocks, you'll only ever be grinding up for them once (unless you own multiple accounts and really want -everything- on all of them...). Heroic gear though? That's just a starting point to enter endgame content.
A fresh 40's most obvious routes of obtaining SCR are alerts and unity (I'm not even familiar with Mechanon), which amounts to 23 SCR per day assuming they do everything. The unity dailies can really weigh down on a person, so they might not do those every day. An altoholic especially might prefer to do just alerts, bringing their earnings down to 10 per day. APs (as you said) aren't likely to be run at all, as you only get 10 per and they take a lot of time to complete. I don't even see why they need caps (4/day) given the agonizing amount of time required to complete them--anyone who actually wants to run them all day deserves what they earn.
Anyway yeah, TA is out of the question for the average person without at least heroic gear, unless you have a group (friends) willing to carry you. Anyone who thinks their fresh 40 DPS AT is actually contributing should be glad the game doesn't have DPS meters. If it did, they might find their spot being filled by someone with bigger numbers after the first few wipes.
It's a group of missions that used to have their own rep. Heat Wave is actually non-combat(mostly, you might have to fight one or more of the patients, but even if that happens just block until they explode... or KO them, the patients are weak). I do Heat Wave daily just because it's so easy. The others vary in difficulty. But if you team for them they're pretty easy.
""The problem is that CO's entry-level endgame set""
The fact that this is phrased in the singular is a big part of the problem IMO. It's why I suggested gear upgrades. That would give people an alternate method of acquiring gear.
"A heavy grind for basic, entry-level endgame gear isn't fun"
I don't think Heroic gear is meant to be "basic entry-level". Are there better things? yeah. But I have to agree with Spinny. Entry level is having level 40 gear. Heroic gear is good, but it's not tHAT much better than random purples.
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Member of Paragon Dawn: Because some people like friendly helpful communities.
Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
And Armadillo/Cyber/Samurai at 11k for each piece.
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1) I can only refine 8k per day. 50k / 8k = a week's worth of grind per piece. That's 3 weeks of grind total, all for entry-level gear. Over at world of warcraft, I can jump into Ashran or Tanaan Jungle and be mostly geared up with entry-level endgame gear in about a day or two. In STO, I can run a few of the endgame-level episodes for a similar result.
2) The scaling set gear (Armadillo, etc) is only 11k per piece. The scaling gear also has the advantage of being useful while leveling, which is great for someone who doesn't have a bunch of heirlooms yet. At 33k for all 3 primary pieces, that's only 5 days of grind. I get that Merc gear is better, but questionite is valuable, and I have to ask myself if it's "better" enough to warrant spending 150k of it rather than 33k. With that kind of difference, I can live with Armadillo primaries for the time being.
Having said that, CO's endgame gear acquisition system needs a reassessment. I'd probably price things like this:
- Mercenary Primaries: Add as bound rewards for completing adventure packs at max level. Different pieces should be tied to different adventure packs so that players don't just run their favorite or the fastest one over and over, but rather, so they can experience several different ones based on what they want. Thus, the rewards should be a choice between 3 different pieces of Merc gear or the current 10 SCR bundle. Not in a random reward box! I'd also probably make the adventure pack SCR reward closer to 15 or 20 because APs are LONG.
- Heroic Primaries: Roughly 50% of their current price at least. Even if they were basically free, there's still a lot of things for people to spend SCR on. Sinking it isn't going to be a problem anytime soon.
- All GCR Items: Remove the SCR costs. I realize SCR was probably added as part of the GCR price to keep everyone running alert and other SCR content hamster wheels, however players are going to be doing this anyway because questionite is also a reward from these same sources: alerts, rampages, APs, etc. With all the costume unlocks, action figures, random devices, etc in the SCR vender, players will still have things to sink their SCR into for quite some time. Since Heroic gear isn't bound, they could even just buy pieces of that and sell it on the exchange for extra resources. Point being, there's little reason to have a SCR cost on GCR items, and all it does is force GCR rewards to compete with SCR rewards (such as Heroic gear) for the same currency.
It's easy to grind Until recog..... just run Serpent Lantern...
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Pretty much the same thing has happened in World of Warcraft. I used to play years ago, and not-too-long ago I picked it back up (and had to backtrack 3 expansions-worth of content) and continued where I left off on my old character. Then, I decided to check out the new tutorial and entry areas, so I made a new character. As I leveled the character, I noticed, as I progressed through levels, I ended up seeing fewer and fewer players doing content in the area. This was in stark contrast with my experience with WoW previously, and I was wondering where everyone was. I knew the server wasn't empty by any means; in fact, there was a much larger amount of players around the major cities than in the past (which says a lot, since they were always pretty crowded).
Turns out the reason is simple: RDF. The Random Dungeon Finder. In the past, if you wanted to run a dungeon, you needed to be in a guild, or ask over the regional chat to persuade people to run the dungeon with you for potential loot and to complete quests. Now, World of Warcraft has the Random Dungeon Finder, which will assign you to an at-level group automatically to run a dungeon/raid. The thing is, dungeon drops are generally much better than quest reward drops, and repeating dungeons would net you a higher stream of XP than simply questing. Now, everyone just runs the RDF over and over.
And this sort of grind-mentality has bled over to other aspects of WoW, too. The Darkmoon Faire, which had been always a little grindy, but was mostly just for cosmetic or auxiliary items, has since changed to consist of minigames that reward a special currency when completed, could be done daily, and can be redeemed for "Heirloom Gear" that leveled with your character and is Account-Bound (sound familiar?). Suddenly you had to log in every day to grind these daily minigames to accumulate these tokens in order to work up to these items that are invaluable to new characters and used nearly ubiquitously.
Which brings us full-circle. This isn't an issue in CO, this is an issue in MMOs by the large. If you can really call it an "issue"; it's a playstyle that appeals to more casual, less hard-thinking players as it offers an easy-to-understand formula.
Small Time Spent + Ceaseless Repetition = Profit
No need to worry about memorizing dungeon mechanics, or planning how you're going to acquire your choice gear and outfit your characters! Just do the same thing over and over until you hoard enough/puke! And want to NOT have to grind so much? Just pay some money, even if you're already paying monthly for the game (like is the case with World of Warcraft)!
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Most often Slice N Dice@zap-the-eradicator in-game.
In CO mission reward gear is inherently bad due to not having an assigned level. Socketed gear in CO reduces the power of any mods slotted to the level of the gear. BUT level-less gear is treated as having a level of 0 for this purpose and will actually reduce the power of rank 1 mods. If you're a lowbie who doesn't have anymods better than 1 it's no big deal, but at 40 the difference is very noticeable, especially when it's gear with multiple sockets. Thus mission reward gear is bad in multiple ways, not just base stats.
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Now, WoW questgivers offer a handful of quests with nearby objectives. After finishing those, you're pointed at the next cluster of questgivers some distance away, and it repeats, as you gradually progress across the map. It's totally reasonable and even enjoyable to level through quests under this formula. The only reason the group finder is favored is because:
1) You don't have to think as much. Some of the quest text can be "cryptic" (hur hur) and hard to figure out. All you have to do in queued content is follow the group zerg and massacre everything that gets in your way.
2) You don't have to do as much. Why force yourself to run around and interact with objects, NPCs, etc when you can just park in a capital city and queue repeatedly?
3) The gear is better. Granted that may not matter much since CO doesn't give you gear from alerts, but that doesn't stop people from favoring queues over questing. So, rather than staying caught up with your current level, the typical alert baby will eventually emerge at 40 in either heirlooms or swaddled in the starting gear they got from the powerhouse trainer and the purple gang quest chain they ran up until hitting level 10. They might be wearing a few pieces of 11k questionite gear (Armadillo set, etc) as well. This was really only a "problem" at first. And I say it as "problem" in quotes because people saw the vast list of goodies and wanted them all instantly, even though that wasn't what Blizzard had intended. They wanted the Darkmoon Faire to be an event you could continue to participate in every time it was open. As for the heirloom gear, there's multiple ways to obtain it--apparently just like there is in CO. It's not even as grindy as you're implying, either. And yes, I can safely I say this as someone with just about every heirloom in the game.
Are you sure we're playing the same game? If I was to make a list of "stereotypes" for CO quests, There'd be four.
1: Introduction quests... These tell you to go talk to a different NPC who might be in a different region. Such as getting a quest to go talk to people in Canada.
2: Massacre quests. Go Kill X number of guys. Or go kill guys and collect things they drop.
3: interact quests. These are the most annoying because they require you to find objects and the objects aren't always in the open.
4: Boss dungeons. Enter the lair of the villain and take him/her out. May or may not be open world. If open world can be glitchy if two players who are not teamed do it at the same time.
It's actually very RARE to find a quest in CO where the objectives are widely scattered.
For example, one of the quests in Lemuria is to find several radioactive nuclear warheads. It has a timer too. You need to find them, deal with whatever enemies might be in the way, then return to the Aegir before the timer runs out... or you faint from radiation exposure. Yeah, the warheads give you a DoT as long as you hold them.
Then there's a short quest chain for rescuing a mini sub. The first quest is to find the oxygen tank that go knocked loose in the crash. It's simple, but it has a timer. The second is to kill enemy things while the crew of the sub restart the engines. No moving required, just kill anything that gets in attack range.
In the Desert area, there's a lot of quests related to the prison there. Viper masterminded a plot to break out the prisoners and use them to bolster Viper's ranks. One of the missions is to collect documents that Viper gave to the prisoners. this is done by wandering the quest area, and beating up any prisoners you find and hoping they drop what you're looking for. You get up to 3, but not often.
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