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PLEASE NO MORE GIANT MONSTER WEEKS

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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    jonesing4 said:


    I can't imagine who else it was in response to, then. It followed your own quoting of coach, and nobody else in the thread at that point had really agreed with him or said anything approaching 'elitism'. Honestly, I'm stumped.

    just noticed it says coach in his signature. I go by forum names. The fact that you actually knew who I was responding to makes me wonder how you misinterpreted what I was responding to.
    jonesing4 said:


    Again, you're reading a lot into what he said (specifically, the part you quoted where you somehow weren't responding to him). The point isn't that "we" have more successful runs by restricting the amount of new players coming in. The point is that "everyone" suffers when the encounter is flooded with an unusual volume of people who don't know how to do the most challenging and finnicky content in the game. People who wanna just grind out their monster kill for the GCR suffer. New people who wanted to check out something fun suffer. People who want new people to enjoy themselves at monster hunts suffer.

    That's fine. I still disagree with the notion that we should somehow be given the position of "Cosmic Gatekeepers" just because we done the thing more than other people. Also don't forget - we do successfully take down Cosmics during Monster Week, so it's not as if the event is a hard cap on our ability to succeed. If anything the messy attempst are a great introduction to people because it shows them what happens when people don't listen or pay attention - and it shows them what can be achieved when people pull together and start doing what they gotta do. You know, the way the rest of us were first introduced to the content.
  • pwestolemynamepwestolemyname Posts: 978 Arc User
    Who said anything about "Cosmic Gatekeepers"? I missed that part. My point, again, is that the more normal rate of addition of new players, as was happening for months before GMW, makes for a better experience for everyone. The new folks can learn the tactics without two painful hours at Kiga and much screaming. The veterans can continue their grind without unnecessary additional work.

    Someone implied that GMW was good so that we would have enough new people to make teams, but that was never an issue before GMW.

    I certainly never said anything about leaving people out, my point was only that it makes sense to add people slowly, instead of in a huge mess... er... mass.

    I also disagree with the statement that it is particularly hard for novices to get into a TA run or any other runs. Pretty much all of the vets I know, including those in this thread claiming the above, regularly include novices on their runs. I was just on one the other day with two first-timers, a tank and a DPS, two of the most experienced vets and me. The vets were very good about teaching the tactics and helping the new folks along. I've seen many runs go with novices. And I've seen TA advertised in Zone. So, people need to stop spreading this nonsense that novices are left out.

    One of the main issues around here is the continued propagation of "alternative facts", like novices get left out of everything. If people would stop saying that, actual useful discussion could happen.
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  • darqaura2darqaura2 Posts: 932 Arc User

    Who said anything about "Cosmic Gatekeepers"? I missed that part. My point, again, is that the more normal rate of addition of new players, as was happening for months before GMW, makes for a better experience for everyone. The new folks can learn the tactics without two painful hours at Kiga and much screaming. The veterans can continue their grind without unnecessary additional work.

    Someone implied that GMW was good so that we would have enough new people to make teams, but that was never an issue before GMW.

    I certainly never said anything about leaving people out, my point was only that it makes sense to add people slowly, instead of in a huge mess... er... mass.

    I also disagree with the statement that it is particularly hard for novices to get into a TA run or any other runs. Pretty much all of the vets I know, including those in this thread claiming the above, regularly include novices on their runs. I was just on one the other day with two first-timers, a tank and a DPS, two of the most experienced vets and me. The vets were very good about teaching the tactics and helping the new folks along. I've seen many runs go with novices. And I've seen TA advertised in Zone. So, people need to stop spreading this nonsense that novices are left out.

    One of the main issues around here is the continued propagation of "alternative facts", like novices get left out of everything. If people would stop saying that, actual useful discussion could happen.

    I find the bursts of new players during Cosmic week a great way to introduce the cosmics to a whole bunch of people at once.
    I think it's one of the better things the devs have introduced. I think others agree. We can agree to disagree. /shrug
  • servantrulesservantrules Posts: 312 Arc User
    edited January 2017


    I have reset my expectations (a while ago), and Eidolon is now the challenging Cosmic . . . until we figure that one out.

    Eido is doable. I've had a few after the update on the guardians. It's just that it has a low margin of error compared to the other 3, so pretty much everyone has to be on the same page early on. I wouldn't recommend it for people who haven't done any of the other Cosmics, though. However, people who have successfully done Kiga, Qwyj, and Teleio SHOULD be capable of handling Eido (I'm assuming they listen to what works and what doesn't at that point).
  • jonesing4jonesing4 Posts: 800 Arc User
    spinnytop said:

    just noticed it says coach in his signature. I go by forum names. The fact that you actually knew who I was responding to makes me wonder how you misinterpreted what I was responding to.

    Well... I didn't. You accused someone of elitism who was showing no elitism in what he said. *shrug*
    spinnytop said:


    Also don't forget - we do successfully take down Cosmics during Monster Week, so it's not as if the event is a hard cap on our ability to succeed. If anything the messy attempst are a great introduction to people because it shows them what happens when people don't listen or pay attention - and it shows them what can be achieved when people pull together and start doing what they gotta do. You know, the way the rest of us were first introduced to the content.

    That's fine, I guess I'd ultimately have to side with darq:
    darqaura2 said:

    We can agree to disagree. /shrug

    If other people like GMW, that's fine. I like the reduced timers and increased rewards, I don't like that they end up being a bit more of a PITA most times. Powers that be aren't asking for any of our input, so it's moot, and I don't really care one way or another.
  • rtmartma Posts: 1,198 Arc User
    aesica said:

    Multiple difficulty settings would solve this problem. It would allow people to more casually experience the content while still giving challenge-seekers what they want. Everyone wins this way instead of just some people.​​

    Like Instanced Difficulty like Normal, Hard, Elite? if rewards are scaled then most people are going to throw themselves at the greatest reward cause that's their priority.

    Want to get to know me a bit better, Click me and take a read of My Dragon Profile Page, it's a bit dated but still relevant.

    I take this quote from a review that I agree with.

    "customisation is so linear; everyone is after the optimal dps:survivability ratio with 0 reliance on other players = autonomous gameplay... Players don't need each other anymore... which in my opinion is a bad thing."
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited January 2017

    Who said anything about "Cosmic Gatekeepers"?

    The thread is asking for an event to be removed in order to control the rate of influx of new players, remember?

    darqaura2 said:

    I find the bursts of new players during Cosmic week a great way to introduce the cosmics to a whole bunch of people at once.
    I think it's one of the better things the devs have introduced. I think others agree. We can agree to disagree. /shrug

    I agree to agree o/

    rtma said:

    Like Instanced Difficulty like Normal, Hard, Elite? if rewards are scaled then most people are going to throw themselves at the greatest reward cause that's their priority.

    I agree, difficulty settings aren't very useful once you consider basic player psychology.

    Also when you consider that the difficulty setting is the definition of artificial difficulty and doesn't actually add any more fun to an encounter.
  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    rtma wrote: »
    Like Instanced Difficulty like Normal, Hard, Elite? if rewards are scaled then most people are going to throw themselves at the greatest reward cause that's their priority.
    It depends on how reasonably the challenges and rewards are scaled. If Normal is treated as sightseeing mode (Slightly harder than Warlord) with only SCR, Hard as slightly harder than Cybermind with GCR, and Elite being the really hard stuff with more GCR than Elite, then I think what you'd see is this:
    • Normal: Those learning the fights, those who aren't very skilled, those who have yucky fresh 40 gear, or those in a hurry who just want to meet some daily quota might do this one. But it's just a stepping stone to Hard or Elite.
    • Hard: The bulk of the playerbase would probably do this. STO has similar normal/hard/elite options for most of its instanced content and hard (advanced) is what people typically gravitate toward. You'd be able to build GCR this way without being a hardcore player, but you'd still have to at least know the basic mechanics. (just like you do with Cybermind)
    • Elite: Those who like challenging content will go here. The fact that these multiple difficulties exist would mean the devs could really go all out on this to produce content closer to the difficulty of WoW's mythic raid bosses. Those who are able to do it reliably would be able to farm it and get their shinies faster than the bulk of the population.

    Although given CO's (lack of) population, perhaps 3 difficulties would be over the top. 2 is most certainly reasonable though. One around Cybermind in terms of difficulty that people could pug for reasonably, and the other being roughly the difficulty we have now, perhaps even a touch higher since multiple difficulties opens up that door. Both should offer a road toward GCR gear because neither the hardcore cosmic crowd nor the casual crowd actually needs that stuff to do their content, yet having it makes the game so much more pleasant.​​
    (Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    aesica said:


    • Normal: Those learning the fights, those who aren't very skilled, those who have yucky fresh 40 gear, or those in a hurry who just want to meet some daily quota might do this one. But it's just a stepping stone to Hard or Elite.
    • Hard: The bulk of the playerbase would probably do this. STO has similar normal/hard/elite options for most of its instanced content and hard (advanced) is what people typically gravitate toward. You'd be able to build GCR this way without being a hardcore player, but you'd still have to at least know the basic mechanics. (just like you do with Cybermind)
    • Elite: Those who like challenging content will go here. The fact that these multiple difficulties exist would mean the devs could really go all out on this to produce content closer to the difficulty of WoW's mythic raid bosses. Those who are able to do it reliably would be able to farm it and get their shinies faster than the bulk of the population.
    Everyone would run it on Elite. We don't have significant enough gear gating to prevent it, and people don't want to invest time to get a lesser reward. The ramifications of our difficulty settings are simply too easy to overcome for them to really be meaningful. There was a time when we had content with difficulty settings where higher difficulty meant better loot. Result: Everyone ran everything at the highest difficulty because there was no point or need for the lower ones.

    In other games gear gating prevents everyone just immediately going to the higher tiered content to get the best loot. We don't have that. One youtube video showing how to do it on the highest difficulty and you've opened the gates for everyone, and for all the complaining a few people do about "too hard not fun!", Elite difficulty would do nothing to dissuade anyone from just skipping ahead.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    rtma said:

    aesica said:

    Multiple difficulty settings would solve this problem. It would allow people to more casually experience the content while still giving challenge-seekers what they want. Everyone wins this way instead of just some people.​​

    Like Instanced Difficulty like Normal, Hard, Elite? if rewards are scaled then most people are going to throw themselves at the greatest reward cause that's their priority.

    They'll throw themselves at the best ratio of reward to effort. At current difficulty setting, running TA on elite takes maybe 50% longer and is somewhat more demanding on gear and builds, but not dramatically so, so if it gave, say, +100% rewards, almost everyone would run it on elite, if it gave +10% most people would run it on normal because not worth the trouble.
    spinnytop said:

    Also when you consider that the difficulty setting is the definition of artificial difficulty and doesn't actually add any more fun to an encounter.

    People really shouldn't use the term artificial difficulty -- all the things people call "artificial difficulty" are in fact real difficulty, it's just a type of difficulty that the person talking about the issue dislikes. I mean, a mission of 'defeat 500 purple gang' is more difficult than a mission of 'defeat 100 purple gang', despite the fact that anyone who can do the second mission is also capable of doing the first mission.

    However, I would also dispute the claim that difficulty settings can't add more fun to an encounter. Even if they don't introduce new mechanics (or modify mechanics; imagine Elite Medusa spawning 9 bombs, or the falloff for stacks from Teleios going from 70s to 100s), a higher difficulty generally reduces your margin of error, and thus causes some threats you might have previously ignored to become relevant.
  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,544 Arc User
    Speaking of Eido, are people doing Qzone these days? When I am on I don't see much chatter about it and when I am doing Qzone dailies I feel very alone there.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited January 2017


    People really shouldn't use the term artificial difficulty -- all the things people call "artificial difficulty" are in fact real difficulty,

    Not true. Artificial difficulty is very much a real thing, and should be avoided - it can be seen as "numeric difficulty" as opposed to "skill difficulty". It's fine so long as it's paired with skill difficulty, and so long as the focus is on the latter rather than the former. Numeric difficulty can only serve as a complement to skill difficulty, so if you're going to increase numeric then you need to increase skill - players will notice if you try to do it the cheap way, and they generally aren't happy when they do.

    I mean, a mission of 'defeat 500 purple gang' is more difficult than a mission of 'defeat 100 purple gang', despite the fact that anyone who can do the second mission is also capable of doing the first mission.

    Not true. In fact, what you're describing isn't an increase in difficulty at all, artificial or otherwise. The 500 version is not more difficult, it's just longer.

    a higher difficulty generally reduces your margin of error, and thus causes some threats you might have previously ignored to become relevant.

    To a point. But at a certain point you are no longer testing players' skill and are instead testing their tolerance for tedium. You generally want to stop the encounter before that point because the game no longer benefits from keeping players going after that point. That's why lengthening encounters as a form of difficulty increase is counterproductive - eventually players go "Okay we get it, we're bored now".

    As has been pointed out before, higher damage output from npcs just restricts builds. You've even pointed this out yourself recently. That's why you want a balanced damage output from enemies, and you don't want higher difficulty settings to be based around higher damage output - you don't want your Elite setting to be a "Only these builds" setting. Other games solve this issue by (a) having a class based character development system and (b) gear tiers.

    (or modify mechanics; imagine Elite Medusa spawning 9 bombs, or the falloff for stacks from Teleios going from 70s to 100s)

    The first one would be a better example of real challenge increase, as now the entire party has to successfully complete the skill check. The second one would just be another "Only these builds" setting, since highly specialized healer builds wouldn't really be fazed by that change( I know a few who would say something along the lines of "they think this is hard? lol" ), but less specialized healers would struggle.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    spinnytop said:


    People really shouldn't use the term artificial difficulty -- all the things people call "artificial difficulty" are in fact real difficulty,

    Not true. Artificial difficulty is very much a real thing, and should be avoided - it can be seen as "numeric difficulty" as opposed to "skill difficulty".
    Numeric difficulty is real difficult. It's just difficulty that a lot of people don't find engaging or interesting.
    spinnytop said:

    Not true. In fact, what you're describing isn't an increase in difficulty at all, artificial or otherwise. The 500 version is not more difficult, it's just longer.

    Longer is more difficult.
  • pwestolemynamepwestolemyname Posts: 978 Arc User
    Reward related difficulty ratings are the epitome of elitism. That's why CO took that out, too many people were flaming about how only the elite players could get the better gear by running elite missions. Yes, we still have mission difficulty, but you get no different drops.
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  • pwestolemynamepwestolemyname Posts: 978 Arc User


    I have reset my expectations (a while ago), and Eidolon is now the challenging Cosmic . . . until we figure that one out.

    Eido is doable. I've had a few after the update on the guardians. It's just that it has a low margin of error compared to the other 3, so pretty much everyone has to be on the same page early on. I wouldn't recommend it for people who haven't done any of the other Cosmics, though. However, people who have successfully done Kiga, Qwyj, and Teleio SHOULD be capable of handling Eido (I'm assuming they listen to what works and what doesn't at that point).
    Yeah, I'm not sure why Roughbear says Eido needs to be figured out. It was figured out weeks ago. The week before GMW dropped, I was on three consecutive sub-12 minute runs. Even after the update to the OMs, it is still "figured out". Just the other day I was on a fast successful run. It's plenty figured out.
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User

    Reward related difficulty ratings are the epitome of elitism.

    Well, the entire point of elite content is elitism, so I'd say adding it represents a deliberate change of direction. Independently of that, the real problem with difficulty settings is that they really weren't all that difficult. Elite, because of the threat radius changes, does have more effect than the other difficulty levels, but it still isn't all that substantial.
  • roughbearmattachroughbearmattach Posts: 4,784 Arc User

    <

    Yeah, I'm not sure why Roughbear says Eido needs to be figured out. It was figured out weeks ago. The week before GMW dropped, I was on three consecutive sub-12 minute runs. Even after the update to the OMs, it is still "figured out". Just the other day I was on a fast successful run. It's plenty figured out.

    I'm not sure why you didn't understand my post. It was very clear. Kiga, Qwijy, and Dino are "solved" to the point of being autowin most of the time (even Dino). Even after a new guide was put together for Eido, and even after I have been on successful runs lately, many players have never done it and have no idea of the mechanics. It isn't "figured out" by the rank and file of the cosmics players, who usually wait for the other cosmics to come off CD instead of proceeding to Eido.

    Sheesh. You know that I participate in Eido fights, using my lowly CCer, Sleight of Mind, as a sorta healer and provider of AoPM.

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  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,544 Arc User
    Pretty much my experience. I hardly ever see anyone talking about Eido anymore. I haven't done one since the change. I'd like to get into some runs to have a better grasp of the changes so that I can be part of a growing pool of players who can help others to navigate it.

    <

    Yeah, I'm not sure why Roughbear says Eido needs to be figured out. It was figured out weeks ago. The week before GMW dropped, I was on three consecutive sub-12 minute runs. Even after the update to the OMs, it is still "figured out". Just the other day I was on a fast successful run. It's plenty figured out.

    I'm not sure why you didn't understand my post. It was very clear. Kiga, Qwijy, and Dino are "solved" to the point of being autowin most of the time (even Dino). Even after a new guide was put together for Eido, and even after I have been on successful runs lately, many players have never done it and have no idea of the mechanics. It isn't "figured out" by the rank and file of the cosmics players, who usually wait for the other cosmics to come off CD instead of proceeding to Eido.

    Sheesh. You know that I participate in Eido fights, using my lowly CCer, Sleight of Mind, as a sorta healer and provider of AoPM.

    JwLmWoa.png
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited January 2017

    Numeric difficulty is real difficult. It's just difficulty that a lot of people don't find engaging or interesting.

    It's called artificial because you just beat it with better numbers, as opposed to skill. The fact that people don't find it interesting or engaging is the reason to avoid it.


    Longer is more difficult.

    Except it isn't in the example you gave. What's so difficult about pummeling purple gang dudes for 10 minutes instead of 5? The only way that "kill 500 purple gang dudes" could be more difficult than "kill 100 purple gang dudes" is if you had to fight them all at once, in which case it's not a case of "longer" but a case of "more enemies at once", which isn't artificial difficulty.

    If you take a fight where the opponent does 1 dps and make it five hours long, it's no more difficult than if it was 10 seconds long. Length by itself cannot make a fight more difficult - i.e. increasing health pools by itself cannot make a fight more difficult, only longer.
  • mithrosnomoremithrosnomore Posts: 521 Arc User

    Speaking of Eido, are people doing Qzone these days? When I am on I don't see much chatter about it and when I am doing Qzone dailies I feel very alone there.

    I wasn't playing for a while, a little over a month starting on Christmas eve, and in the few days I have been back I haven't seen a single Eidolon run. Not even one I didn't know about until after it was done.

    I saw some people gathering teams for Q-zone dailies, but not Eidolon fights.
    And this is with the Eidolon being offered as a daily sometime over the past few days.

    Either people formed up groups for secret runs, made runs while I was not on (and it seems unlikely that so many people would all get it done during those times), or they did not bother to get/complete the mission.
    aesica said:

    Multiple difficulty settings would solve this problem. It would allow people to more casually experience the content while still giving challenge-seekers what they want. Everyone wins this way instead of just some people.​​

    No.

    Only the people that run it on elite "win" because they would get a greater reward and the people that could not deal with that difficulty would talk about how it was unfair to them.

    It happened before.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited January 2017

    Speaking of Eido, are people doing Qzone these days? When I am on I don't see much chatter about it and when I am doing Qzone dailies I feel very alone there.

    I do them, and so do some other people. Currently it's too easy to get tokens via cosmics, since the cosmic train runs all day long, so most people don't really bother with any other sources. If they get some sort of difficulty pass again that might change. I know I and a few other people do qzone dailies. I do them cause I like them, and am not so fond of cosmics.


    Only the people that run it on elite "win" because they would get a greater reward and the people that could not deal with that difficulty would talk about how it was unfair to them.

    It happened before.

    Either that or nobody would bother with anything below Elite since it wouldn't be gear gated and there would be no point learning the instance on lower difficulties. I know if the rewards were affected by difficulty now I would never run it on anything but the highest setting, and that's what I would bring new people into as well cause why teach them to get lower rewards, right?
  • lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User



    aesica said:

    Multiple difficulty settings would solve this problem. It would allow people to more casually experience the content while still giving challenge-seekers what they want. Everyone wins this way instead of just some people.​​

    No.

    Only the people that run it on elite "win" because they would get a greater reward and the people that could not deal with that difficulty would talk about how it was unfair to them.

    It happened before.
    I don't see how this is bad. In fact, what Aesica described is how every MMO ever has worked. Of course greater difficulty would give better rewards, and it wouldn't be unfair because it would actually be rewarding people who take the time to learn and understand what they are doing. Unlike Cosmics for instance.
  • pwestolemynamepwestolemyname Posts: 978 Arc User
    lezard21 said:



    aesica said:

    Multiple difficulty settings would solve this problem. It would allow people to more casually experience the content while still giving challenge-seekers what they want. Everyone wins this way instead of just some people.​​

    No.

    Only the people that run it on elite "win" because they would get a greater reward and the people that could not deal with that difficulty would talk about how it was unfair to them.

    It happened before.
    I don't see how this is bad. In fact, what Aesica described is how every MMO ever has worked. Of course greater difficulty would give better rewards, and it wouldn't be unfair because it would actually be rewarding people who take the time to learn and understand what they are doing. Unlike Cosmics for instance.
    As I mentioned, CO tried this before, but there was such a river of flame that they gave it up. I mean, ever wonder why running missions on Elite doesn't give better rewards? It makes no sense.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited January 2017
    lezard21 said:

    I don't see how this is bad. In fact, what Aesica described is how every MMO ever has worked. Of course greater difficulty would give better rewards, and it wouldn't be unfair because it would actually be rewarding people who take the time to learn and understand what they are doing. Unlike Cosmics for instance.

    Those other MMOs either have circumstances we don't have, or they end up with similar results - people see higher rewards and go for that right away. You need hard barriers to stop people from making difficulty selection pointless, such as gear gating, which we don't have. Remember, it's been shown that people will say the important thing is fun and quality of experience, but ultimately what they do is go after the best rewards even if it's less fun.
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