Increase Rewards for Qliphothic Warzone Dailies

arimikami

I do the Qliphothic Warzone dailies pretty regularly (almost every day). For a pretty long while now, the zone is empty almost every time I go there and, even when there are other people in the zone, it's only one or two other people. I think the reason for this is that the dailies out there are essentially worthless when it comes to earning Gold Champion Recognition which, as far as I know, is the main reason why the zone was even introduced in the first place.

As things currently stand, someone trying to earn GCR through the dailies in the QWarzone would have to grind them out every day for almost an entire year (50 weeks) to get one piece of Virtuous or Distinguished gear. That means anyone relying on QWarzone dailies to gear their toon would have to grind out those dailies for four and a half years to get gold gear on just one toon on a game where being able to create numerous toons with different playstyles seems to be one of the main selling points. Given this, it's pretty easy to see why almost no one bothers with the Qliphothic Warzone. This doesn't even touch on additional things people might be trying to earn that cost GCR, such as new powers and mods.

I'm not asking that the amount of GCR be vastly increased to make getting GCR gear laughably easy but, I do think it's clear that a boost in rewards is needed.

I think a good increase would be to have the daily mission Nightwatch award 5 GCR and then have the GCR reward on the weekly mission The Long War be increased to 15-20 GCR. It's my opinion that doing this would create more interest in the Qliphothic Warzone and, with that increased interest, would make that zone more accessible to players that don't have toons able to solo out there by providing them more readily available people to team with when they go to that zone which may result in more people attempting to take part in the open missions found in the QWarzone as well.

spinnytop

I think increasing the reward from 1 per day to 9 per day counts as vastly increasing the reward.

The QWZ dailies were actually introduced as a source of SCR, and throughout most of their development the intent was that they only give SCR. The GCR quest was basically a last minute addition and was the devs giving in to repeated requests for "small group/solo GCR content". It took a lot of convincing just to get that 1 GCR per day, and subsequent requests for more small group/solo GCR content have been met with a very firm No. The fact that the QWZ is just downright unpopular, indicating that people aren't really interested in that kind of small group/solo content to begin with, means that No is unlikely to shift - why would the devs want to motivate players to do content that isn't popular?

I don't think there should be a drive to artificially increase the popularity of the zone by raising GCR rewards. The zone is unpopular, people don't like it for a variety of reasons. The primary issue isn't actually the GCR rewards, but the fact that there's some pretty big inflation on SCR; it's pretty easy to get now between Cosmics and the various dailies in the game - the QWZ is a somewhat specialized source for those who like it, most people don't.

theravenforce

spinnytop said:

The fact that the QWZ is just downright unpopular, indicating that people aren't really interested in that kind of small group/solo content to begin with, means that No is unlikely to shift - why would the devs want to motivate players to do content that isn't popular?

I think players would be more inclined to utilize the warzone content if there wasn't such a bias towards certain playstyles within it.

Just looking at some of the protections or buffs that enemies in the warzone have (See Nightmare Demolisher's buffs bar)...I've found that melee tanks or melee builds which can survive have an easier time in the Warzone than say...ranged builds. (I say this based off my own experience with LR/Invuln/Regen/WoTW/Unstoppable melee builds vs Quarry/TC/Fiery Form/Ice Form/Ego Form ranged builds. I don't have many tanky ranged builds)

Also, enemies aren't that difficult to combat in higher level content outside of the Warzone so there's not much which prepares players for that sharp turn of events.

Another thing (perhaps more surprising) is, there are players who DON'T KNOW THE WARZONE EXISTS.

I see your point though, but creating content which grants desired rewards but is attractive to some and not to others can be seen as problematic.

But again, it's clearly not something that will be addressed.

I do agree that there needs to be less stingy rewards when it comes to SCR and GCR, especially considering that they are character bound, but unless something magical happens...I don't see it changing unfortunately...

pantagruel01

Warzone is already the place to go if you need to grind out some scr fast. Problem is, most people get as much scr as they actually need from cosmics plus alert dailies.

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spinnytop

gradii said:

If mobs in CO weren't such a laughable example of poor game design I might still be playing



This obviously includes and especially includes Q zone.​​

Translation: DaZee fought the QWZ, and the QWZ won. The bad guys win! \o/

aesica

spinnytop said:

The fact that the QWZ is just downright unpopular, indicating that people aren't really interested in that kind of small group/solo content to begin with, means that No is unlikely to shift - why would the devs want to motivate players to do content that isn't popular?

There you go again. Either you just don't understand or you're intentionally trying to spin(ny top) things a certain way to persuade the dev team to "make it your way" or whatever because you're some sort of masochist gamer. It's the rewards vs the effort that sucks about the qzone more than anything else. (Although the ambience and tedious nature of the quests are also very much factors)

Let's try an experiment! For one week, double all SCR earned from qzone daily quests and on top of that, add 2 GCR as a reward for each of the daily quests. Just for one week. Announce it so everyone knows about it. Don't worry, that's only 70 "free" GCR, (71-72 if you count the lolworthy long war quest reward) so people will still need to engage in those oh-so-"fun" grinds ad nauseum to get the other...180+ required for their single piece of gear.

Now, sit back and see if people start doing the content, or if it remains empty because "people don't want small group/solo content" like you claim.

spinnytop

aesica said:

There you go again. Either you just don't understand or you're intentionally trying to spin(ny top) things a certain way to persuade the dev team to "make it your way" or whatever because you're some sort of masochist gamer. It's the rewards vs the effort that sucks about the qzone more than anything else. (Although the ambience and tedious nature of the quests are also very much factors)

Let's try an experiment! For one week, double all SCR earned from qzone daily quests and on top of that, add 2 GCR as a reward for each of the daily quests. Just for one week. Announce it so everyone knows about it. Don't worry, that's only 70 "free" GCR, (71-72 if you count the lolworthy long war quest reward) so people will still need to engage in those oh-so-"fun" grinds ad nauseum to get the other...180+ required for their single piece of gear.

Now, sit back and see if people start doing the content, or if it remains empty because "people don't want small group/solo content" like you claim.

Again, what's the point in artificially increasing the popularity of the content? Sure, make each quest give 100 GCR and everyone who knows about it would flood the place. However, that doesn't tell the devs if the content is popular or not, it just tells them that the rewards are popular. The useful information is "is this content the kind of thing players will actively use?". Luring people into the QWZ with bigger rewards has no value regarding development decisions.

Cosmics weren't always the recog piniata they are now, remember? Cosmics used to be hard, success wasn't guaranteed, and it took quite a few months before they were on farm status. And yet, despite the difficulty, despite the frustration, despite the complaints, and despite the slow pace of rewards people did cosmics in droves. That has never happened for the QWZ, which proves that there isn't much interest for that kind of content. It's simply a fact. Baiting people in with big rewards doesn't change that.

See you assume that people don't know what they want to do. I propose to you that they do.

aesica

spinnytop said:

Cosmics weren't always the recog piniata they are now, remember? Cosmics used to be hard, success wasn't guaranteed, and it took quite a few months before they were on farm status. And yet, despite the difficulty, despite the frustration, despite the complaints, and despite the slow pace of rewards people did cosmics in droves. That has never happened for the QWZ, which proves that there isn't much interest for that kind of content. It's simply a fact. Baiting people in with big rewards doesn't change that.

Sorry, but it doesn't matter how "fun" something may seem. While sure, some content is more fun than other content, but ultimately, it's the rewards that get people into it. With GCR as the new currency all the shiniest crap was going to be gated behind, of course people kept trying until they got the patterns down. Would people have still tried to take down the cosmics if they rewarded nothing? How often do people form groups to kill the roaming death chicken in the qzone?

spinnytop said:

See you assume that people don't know what they want to do. I propose to you that they do.

Not at all. From my observation, people generally want to do the following things in MMOs like this:

1) Chat with friends and/or roleplay. This has a high replay value because humans make interesting, dynamic content.

2) Fight/compete against other players. This also has a high replay value for similar reasons.

3) Experience story content, anything from quests to adventure packs. This generally has a lower replay value because once you've seen the sights, the reruns are less stimulating. That's not to say such things are bad, because good, rich story content makes a game stand out and feel more immersive.

4) Grow their character(s)/account. Obviously has a very high replay value because earning and/or achieving is everywhere in games and social media because it works. If you strip away everything else in an online game (and many offline games) what you're left with is a system of growing numbers through repetitive tasks. Advancement. Since humans typically don't do repetitive tasks "just for fun" (because they're not fun) you have to either vary the task each time (different levels in a mario game) or dangle some sort of reward--the carrot on a stick, if you will.

5) Just create. Not every game caters to this, but CO definitely does. This has as high or as low a replay value as the user's imagination allows. Your mileage may vary on this one.

Since the qzone isn't a new "level" every time we attempt to do stuff in it, the carrot dangling from the stick needs to be appealing enough to offset the repetition and (thanks to excessive knocks/stuns) annoyance/frustration people may encounter there.

What do you think would happen if CO removed ALL rewards from ALL content? Would people still do cosmics? Or alerts? Or anything besides playing dressup at the tailor or exploring random adventure packs they'd never seen before?

The reward psychology used in games is used because it works. Do this thing, get a prize, repeat. While yes, seeing my CO character plow through things is rewarding, much moreso than that is actually seeing it get stronger. People want to feel like they're advancing at more than just a snail's pace.

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pantagruel01

To be perfectly honest: the rewards for the qwz are in line with the difficulty; if I feel a need to farm SCR, I'm likely to go to the warzone. It's somewhat challenging to solo but it's hilariously fast with a team. It's just that, well, the warzone isn't very interesting, and I'm generally not that short on SCR, and I'm sure other people feel the same way.

spinnytop

pantagruel01 said:

the warzone isn't very interesting, and I'm generally not that short on SCR, and I'm sure other people feel the same way.

The main thing keeping the QWZ from people popular is the inflation on SCR. It's just too easy to get for people to bother with anything but the easiest sources.

darqaura2

spinnytop said:

pantagruel01 said:

the warzone isn't very interesting, and I'm generally not that short on SCR, and I'm sure other people feel the same way.

The main thing keeping the QWZ from people popular is the inflation on SCR. It's just too easy to get for people to bother with anything but the easiest sources.

Errr no. The warzone really has no complete storyline. Other than the missions which you must complete to conclude the dailies, there is no overarching storyline. And the "last boss" of the zone is not something you can even start with the regular team of 5 people or a team of two, like other QWZ missions. It's locked behind a raid, so there is no real payoff for the zone.

In addition the overall esthetics of the zone are absolutely depressing to look at for extended periods of time. If there were another zone like it, say another city zone with similar mechanics, I think it would be a way to for players to break up the monotony of purple, purple, purple all the time.

Compare it to what they did with Vibora Bay. I get why it is the way it is: lack of dev resources. I mean they only recently were able to add some flavor text to the last boss, Eido.

I think it's a bit tunnel visioned to say that easier sources of SCR are what is keeping it a less popular zone.

aesica

spinnytop said:

The main thing keeping the QWZ from people popular is the inflation on SCR. It's just too easy to get for people to bother with anything but the easiest sources.

While I agree with the underlined part, the "inflation" of SCR is an utterly hilarious and absurd statement. The reason any sort of SCR "inflation" happened is because the price hike on Heroic/etc gear that happened awhile ago moved the goal posts way too far away for normal, sane human beings to want to bother with. Any "inflation" is just an attempt to offset that and, once again, make the stuff actually worth trying to obtain.

That said, yeah. There are better, easier sources of SCR. Hence why the qzone could use a reward boost. Glad we agree on something!