- Champions Online: Calling All Heroes -

gentlegiantvexx

Hey guys,
Really though we all know this game needs tweaking and some support, Blah blah blah. But you gotta bring in players of course. And what is the absolute best fun about this game? It's free form capability and that alone, to create your imagination from back in the day to even modern times.
So why not make it the main thing? Archetypes really are only for If you don't wish to make a build from scratch, or just learning how powers and spec trees.

-Freeforms and Archetypes-
Back in November 2015, Cryptic gave away a free freeform slot and the game blew up it's population to 1000 people that day and second day, where it even brought Gold buying bots. That right there says something! and Much more money was brought in for a fact, because I sure did blow a good $100 bucks at the time. (I'll be able to afford LTS someday hopefully :P)

Why not give a big change in Play?

Suggestion:
- Make All the ATs we currently have Free, except for the Event obtainable ones.
- Perhaps make the newer upcoming ATs event obtainable as well, OR Have them cost a small fee to purchase to play until after one or two months before making it free (Of if another AT has come out)
- The Freeform slots should be $25 at all times, no need for 50% off sales at all just to get the surge of money, keep it all year round, it's only fair.
Subscription / LTS stays the same price, that's as many freeforms a person wants AND color picking for powers, as well as past items and costumes made.

-Alerts-
Now we all know that the XP alerts are the way to go to get to level 10-40 nowadays. I personally don't prefer it, but hey different strokes for different folk. But this REALLY leaves out want/need to go through the game's story. I still haven't played through the game to really appreciate it because I have no one to play with, no randoms out and about that will see the game's hard work in it's entirety.

Suggestion:
- Grabs can be queued after 15 minutes from completion of defeating it's Boss villain, receiving a cooldown buff with the XP Gain increase buff not being allowed to queue for another grab. (Makes players play through the game, which is probably faster.)
- The XP Gain would be twice to three more than current XP gain upon completion to definitely make up for the "lost time". since Alerts take 3-5 minutes to do anyhow.
- If the player did not defeat the boss from any means, They will not receive the buff, and they can queue again.
- The Burst, Smash, Custom Alert, should still remain the same as is.

-Epic Lairs-
Besides us all of course needing more Epic lairs to be Inputted into the game. ( I've not played the game's story to even start trying to think of all the possibilities of Epic lairs, please be patient with me. )

Suggestion (For now):
Not everyone wants to TA at all on each and every 40 they have, perhaps Push all the SCR/GCR in one run instead of three. (Or make that available only for elite mode difficulty). At least until more Epic lairs are released. Being the first individual to gain all distinguished gear upon released within the month, without cosmics there, it was DEFINITELY NOT FUN. But having you gain 26 GCR/SCR (combined daily+3 runs, but can be made 15-20 SCR) can definitely make people raise their hands up to recruit, be taught and enjoy it more than right now.


-Rampages-
Now we all know that the rampage token grind can be a pain, definitely wouldn't lie. But I honestly wouldn't change this, promotes having alts and gaining more Questionite and SCR currently a day! However what would definitely keep the rampages going is if it has a daily itself! We Already have plenty of ways GCR/SCR as it is, but let's keep the variety goin'? Granted as a little something more that's worth constantly going up in rampages at least once.

Suggestion:
- Rampage daily that grants 1-3 GCR, but 5 SCR


I'll probably speak on more things as I go along, but This would make the game SO much better, not just for me, but the community and game itself.

decorumfriends

gentlegiantvexx said:

Suggestion:
- Grabs can be queued after 15 minutes from completion of defeating it's Boss villain, receiving a cooldown buff with the XP Gain increase buff not being allowed to queue for another grab. (Makes players play through the game, which is probably faster.)

No, it'd just make them switch to a different character, if Grabs are all they're after. Or play the other Alerts until the timer's up if not. Nothing about a short cooldown on Grabs is going to induce them to go out in "the world" and play if they're an "Alert Baby" like me.

aesica

1) Freeforms and ATs: I definitely agree with making all ATs free. Gold/LTS players already get them all for free, so really, all the current model profits from is the handful of silver players who are willing to spend money on them. Meanwhile, there's players who will try this game, but leave shortly afterward because they find themselves not enjoying the extremely limited selection of ATs available to them. I was almost one of these, and I wouldn't be here posting this if it wasn't for the free freeform slot that ended up making me a regular.

The whole F2P model is based on impressing potential players initially, waiting until the player already feels invested in the game to introduce the paywall. CO thrusts the paywall into their faces before they even make their first character, and seriously, who's going to crack open their wallet and start throwing money at a game they know nothing about when there's lots of other F2P options out there?

2) Cooldown on alerts: That'd just piss people off, and doing something like that just to make a few other people happy is absolutely the wrong approach. People who want to quest in the world can still do that, it's not necessarily group-mandatory. If the devs really want people out in the world instead of alerts, they'll have to clean up and modernize the quest system, just like WoW did. Unfortunately, I realize that's not a trivial endeavor and the CO team's tiny size doesn't make this a realistic option.​​

shadowolf505

It was November of 2015 with the Free FF slot btw. But I agree on this

ealford1985

I can agree a lot of people showed up, not many stayed and we have no idea what amount of money those people spent.

catstarsto

aesica said:

1) Freeforms and ATs: I definitely agree with making all ATs free. Gold/LTS players already get them all for free, so really, all the current model profits from is the handful of silver players who are willing to spend money on them.

After what happened today, i would agree with that! My Gunslinger kept getting one shotted by Gravitar, it had merc gear with all 7s, but the At had no healing what so ever! So it was useless! Even with the decent dps, if you cant heal, your already dead!

ATs are good for basic content, as long as you pick one that can heal!! Gunslinger you have to buy, and its good dps for a AT dont get me wrong, but the survivability handicap makes its a poor purchase.

shadowzero66

gentlegiantvexx said:

-Alerts-
Now we all know that the XP alerts are the way to go to get to level 10-40 nowadays. I personally don't prefer it, but hey different strokes for different folk. But this REALLY leaves out want/need to go through the game's story. I still haven't played through the game to really appreciate it because I have no one to play with, no randoms out and about that will see the game's hard work in it's entirety.

Suggestion:
- Grabs can be queued after 15 minutes from completion of defeating it's Boss villain, receiving a cooldown buff with the XP Gain increase buff not being allowed to queue for another grab. (Makes players play through the game, which is probably faster.)
- If the player did not defeat the boss from any means, They will not receive the buff, and they can queue again.
- The Burst, Smash, Custom Alert, should still remain the same as is.

If you want to deter the Grab Alert Babies, you can lower the XP awarded at the end. Maybe even adjust up the XP bonus buff to encourage people running missions.

catstarsto said:

aesica said:

1) Freeforms and ATs: I definitely agree with making all ATs free. Gold/LTS players already get them all for free, so really, all the current model profits from is the handful of silver players who are willing to spend money on them.

After what happened today, i would agree with that! My Gunslinger kept getting one shotted by Gravitar, it had merc gear with all 7s, but the At had no healing what so ever! So it was useless! Even with the decent dps, if you cant heal, your already dead!

ATs are good for basic content, as long as you pick one that can heal!! Gunslinger you have to buy, and its good dps for a AT dont get me wrong, but the survivability handicap makes its a poor purchase.

Haven't the devs been slowly re-working some of the ATs to have some sort of heal? Maybe they forgot about it and moved onto something else as they often seem to do.

decorumfriends

I don't quite get complaints about their character not having a heal. There's heal devices for cheap that do the job and stack up to...what is it? 99? I know it's 20 or more, I just don't bother getting more than that. Plus special alerts and event stuff seem to give you more "Second Winds" than you can think of, and they're bound to account and scale to your level.

hasukurobi

Here is another thing about GRABS: Some of us already have lvl 40's and want to work up another build. I do not want to be forced to grind through lots of zoning, back and forth fetch quests, and other nonsense for every toon I make. I already have great disdain for having to bother with the Pre-Appocolypse for Vibora for every toon as it is.

If you really want to make the normal game content matter it needs to reward far better things than EXP. Good amounts of Cash, some Q, and maybe some Gold and Silver cred for the tougher stuff.

catstarsto

decorumfriends said:

I don't quite get complaints about their character not having a heal. There's heal devices for cheap that do the job and stack up to...what is it? 99? I know it's 20 or more, I just don't bother getting more than that. Plus special alerts and event stuff seem to give you more "Second Winds" than you can think of, and they're bound to account and scale to your level.

I have my bottle device...that white thing. it heals full health and energy, but those are on a global cooldown so i never bother with purchased ones. it takes a while for them to be usable again. I just went back to my FFs, they are better geared anyways with some legion pieces and balanced survivability. Plus I guess Im going to walk away from pvp and focus on pve content now that i found an active SG

gentlegiantvexx

Added a Rampage tab!

spinnytop

gentlegiantvexx said:

Suggestion (For now):
Not everyone wants to TA at all on each and every 40 they have, perhaps Push all the SCR/GCR in one run instead of three. (Or make that available only for elite mode difficulty). At least until more Epic lairs are released. Being the first individual to gain all distinguished gear upon released within the month, without cosmics there, it was DEFINITELY NOT FUN. But having you gain 26 GCR/SCR (combined daily+3 runs, but can be made 15-20 SCR) can definitely make people raise their hands up to recruit, be taught and enjoy it more than right now.

You didn't find TA fun - neat. Some people find some things fun some people don't, not really an issue. Tripling the reward output for the lair doesn't fix that, i.e. people won't find the lair more fun. All you've done then is inflate reward amounts while trying to lure people into doing something they don't fun. If you just make it for elite, then that's the only difficulty the majority of people will run at - yes this is how it will work, because one run at elite is way shorter than three, and actually isn't really any more difficult. The end result will be that the same people run TA, just with a wider range of characters and while getting more - not really a bonus for the game and doesn't actually solve your problem of "I don't find TA fun".

If your issue is "I don't find TA fun", tripling the reward rate doesn't solve that. Here's a suggestion: Suggest some gcr-level content that you would find fun, and if the idea is good maybe they'll implement something like it, and then your problem is solved ( until you burn yourself out on it by overplaying it like you did with TA ).

gentlegiantvexx said:

Suggestion:
- Rampage daily that grants 1-3 GCR, but 5 SCR

This is just the most blatant "lure people into something that they don't find fun" scheme yet. Yeah I know, rampage ques frequently don't pop a lot... that's because it turns out most people don't find them fun. Rampages need a complete overhaul ( two more than the rest ) before any more lures can be put into place, at which point they can remove the rng tokens and just make it drop gcr and similar rewards to other gcr level content. It's been proven at this point that the rng tokens are a frustrating and unsatisfying reward delivery system, and it's also been proven that despite the claims of some people rampages just aren't a fun ride as is ( with 1.5 exceptions ).

spinnytop

decorumfriends said:

I don't quite get complaints about their character not having a heal. There's heal devices for cheap that do the job and stack up to...what is it? 99? I know it's 20 or more, I just don't bother getting more than that. Plus special alerts and event stuff seem to give you more "Second Winds" than you can think of, and they're bound to account and scale to your level.

People see freeforms who are stuffed to the gills with healing powers and then think that's what you need in order to play the game. It's been disproven repeatedly, but some people still hold on to the belief despite evidence of people doing well with little or no heals on a character.

decorumfriends

I have to say, I have a whole second account for ATs and healing has never been a problem.

decorumfriends

catstarsto said:

I have my bottle device...that white thing. it heals full health and energy, but those are on a global cooldown so i never bother with purchased ones. it takes a while for them to be usable again.

Cooldown on the purchased heals is way WAY less than the cooldown on the...um, yeah, I'll just say bottle thingy, too.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

spinnytop

gradii said:

I don't like CO. I'm making sure everyone knows that.​​

Thx for stopping by buddy. Never change.

meeoeoowie

Some of these suggestions are interesting? I certainly don't agree with a lot of them personally. For starters, unless you're running a full team of level 40 friendlies, grab alerts aren't the fastest to level with, last time I checked. Open-zone missions using a vehicle is. Alerts are the most popular, and taking the most popular route of levelling and adding a forced time-gate system to try and funnel the playerbase into certain routines is the most artificial way to make the player play a certain way.
If some content is being played more, that's what the player wants to be doing, free will is a strong enough element to decide this, do not let the game decide how the player levels for them, that's a baaaad thing.
TL;DR - Alerts are popular because they're convenient. Try not force players away from things they like, or prefer. Or just incentivise things better.

Some of the economic decisions mentioned? Not up to the devs, not remotely. Cryptic is under PWE, and under the people managing monies from that point. The cryptic devs have a say in some things, but lack thereof with a lot of other things, so some of the idealistic concepts you may just have to accept as being stifled quiet by the higher ups. I believe that this is correct at least, feel free to correct me.
TL;DR - Devs probably don't control the pay choices. Consider that Cryptic don't have much say, regardless of good/bad ideas.

There are some ideas here that are good, some that have been mentioned before, such as adding more EPIC lairs, such as VIPER Nest, Therakiel's Temple, and so on.

My biggest problem with this post is honestly the title. I know there's a preview, but you could also make the title quickly summarize your post, in stead of making the title effectively just say "everyone click my post".

Sorry if I seemed a little blunt, or negative, and hope some of it was constructive in a way, as all I really want to see is more and better forward-thinking for the game. Keep it up!

Totally overstayed my welcome though, byyye!​​

spinnytop

meeoeoowie said:

My biggest problem with this post is honestly the title. I know there's a preview, but you could also make the title quickly summarize your post, in stead of making the title effectively just say "everyone click my post".

Moar leik calling all zeroes, amirite?

catstarsto

decorumfriends said:

I don't quite get complaints about their character not having a heal. There's heal devices for cheap that do the job and stack up to...what is it? 99? I know it's 20 or more, I just don't bother getting more than that. Plus special alerts and event stuff seem to give you more "Second Winds" than you can think of, and they're bound to account and scale to your level.

decorumfriends said:

catstarsto said:

I have my bottle device...that white thing. it heals full health and energy, but those are on a global cooldown so i never bother with purchased ones. it takes a while for them to be usable again.

Cooldown on the purchased heals is way WAY less than the cooldown on the...um, yeah, I'll just say bottle thingy, too.

Thx for giving a more helpful reply, I may drop the vet reward and just buy the patches. I always kept at least one heal power on a build, and sometimes a shield buff, and thats usually enough...but in Rampages there isnt always a healer and you have to cover your own tail once in a while, especially for rez, ATs dont have that ether.

spinnytop said:

People see freeforms who are stuffed to the gills with healing powers and then think that's what you need in order to play the game. It's been disproven repeatedly, but some people still hold on to the belief despite evidence of people doing well with little or no heals on a character.

I suppose we all cant compare to your greatness (sarcassm)

spinnytop

catstarsto said:

I suppose we all cant compare to your greatness (sarcassm)

Oh look you're offended by your own imagination again. Lemme go find a gif of a cat biting it's own tail...

catstarsto

spinnytop said:

catstarsto said:

I suppose we all cant compare to your greatness (sarcassm)

Oh look you're offended by your own imagination again. Lemme go find a gif of a cat biting it's own tail...

I guess that leaves out, "no Cat you misunderstood me.." Im not offended, if you arent ether then we can say "no harm no foul" and walk away on good terms.


We pals?