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My State of the Game, Nov. 2012
canadascott
Posts: 1,257 Arc User
I would love to be happier with the state of Champions Online. I like playing the system, and have enjoyed it since launch. Unfortunately, there's a but to the statement, and it's reached sumo sized proportions (pun intended).
Bugs, and Not the Qulaar Kind
Recent developments, while well-meaning, have been little short of disastrous. The biggest one is the Nighthawk patch, which opened up more bugs than any development since the first Kitchen Sink patch. This was almost crippling to the game, and even worse than the first two KS patches -- at least I understood why those patches caused some foul ups, but the things that broke during the Nighthawk patch speaks to at least one of two disturbing possibilities: that Champions Online's code is so fragile that even minor changes can produce game-breakers, or that the coders are so incompetent that they introduce bugs into the code that have no relation to the events being worked on. Based on my past experience, I suspect the former rather than the latter. Code can be fragile. However for CO to remain competitive over the long term, its maintenance costs will need to be low, and this trend speaks against it.
This isn't the only discouraging trend.
We had the addition of Backups and Vehicles, which are neat ideas, but which have proven to be less than thrilling in execution (so far).
We had the team attempt to do Staff emanation points for powers, and it turned out to be another failure.
We had a Mega-Destroid event cancelled early because of an inexplicable bug in the auto team system which had never shown up prior to the event. To their credit, Cryptic's handling of this bug was first rate, and the cancellation was absolutely the right call, but it's still discouraging.
The Thaar arc and the Wells Pass arcs were vaporware. There is no new lair in Westside.
We had a Halloween event that was not completed in time. It's not a huge loss, but given the scarcity of new content, it's pretty glaring.
We've had Events. Honestly, as exercises in storytelling, they just don't rank in the same league as Comic Series and Adventure Packs, though I did like the way the Nighthawk moved to a climax, and packaging events, costumes, and a power set together makes for a nifty package. But the other encounters have been extremely lackluster.
Devs? What are Devs?
So State of the Game? Right now, unless Cryptic has some dev staff squirreled away that we don't know about, Cryptic isn't adding to the team. The hope that Cryptic will somehow add people back to CO when NWO is done -- rather than do the logical thing and keep that dev staff working on NWO add-ons to build that game and its audience -- is silly. We're not getting anyone else.
Will the Foundry team move over to CO? The only reason they'd do this is for the bragging rights that all of their games are Foundry-supported. I don't think this is enough.
For the most part, with the exception of a few new events and alerts, expect this game to remain largely in its current form for the duration of its lifespan. If you enjoy it, as I do, that's not necessarily bad news. But this game has a lot of potential that's never going to be developed, and that's sad. Essentially, we're continuing to reap the bitter fruit of what we've sown when we got angry about the prospect of paying for Vibora Bay. Cryptic's backburnered it since then, and it's never going to get anywhere close to that level of development again.
At this point, even the fluff is dying down. When was the last time we got a new costume set?
At this point, I only have three bits of good news: Trailturtle is easily the best community rep this game has had since launch. With apologies to Daeke and Tyshen, both of whom I liked, Trailturtle has been open, enthusiastic, accessible, and professional and if he doesn't care about this game, I sure can't tell. The cynical part of me is wondering how many weeks it'll be before he's transferred to a higher profile title.
In general, dev responsiveness has been much better than in times past; though the current producer has not been all that communicative, the rest of the team has made up for it.
The second bit of good news is that the new Alerts, namely the Warlord and the Hi Pan one, are pretty good, and if that quality is maintained, we can enjoy at least a few snippets of good content as the game winds down. It's not much, but it's better than nothing.
The third bit of good news is that the Powers team is making some good calls on the powers revisions, and have for some time.
Recommendations
So what's to do?
Cryptic has to bite the bullet and invest in this title. But it has to do so intelligently.
First, when Neverwinter goes Live, Cryptic needs to make a concerted effort to give us a good Foundry that 's tailored for the Champions Online experience ASAP. This means new UNITY missions, new Nemesis missions, new PVP maps. Even if they don't have time to give us as many maps or as many objects as in STO or NWO systems, just having the ability to make them will be a game changer.
Yes, a lot of player produced Foundry missions will be crap. But there'll be enough good stuff to add years to the life of the product. If the devs can't do the job, let us do it. It's not hard or expensive to hire an entry level artist or scripter and train him or her to cut out assets in preparation for a foundry system. That would be a good first step and should be starting now.
Second, steps need to be taken ASAP to balance out the options for character advancement in the game. Non-Alert PVE and PVP need incentivization. I really want to see a daily along the lines of "play 5 missions in a zone for 2000Q" or "play Stronghold or Zombie Apocalypse to the end and gain a minimum score" for 2000Q. Oh, and nerf Smash Alert XP a bit (say 25%). It's not wrong for Smash Alerts to be a better source of XP than missions that also gear you, but it is such an obvious win at the moment, and encouraging people to go through alerts undergeared doesn't make PuGs more pleasant either.
Third, I'd like to see some general improvements that need to be implemented soon. These include:
* the ability to form ten person raid groups will make it easier for SGs to run Rampages, and probably improve the queue for Gravitar and the new Carrier mission.
* Free for alls should be added as an option for Duels.
* The maximum number of people allowed in Hideouts increased to 15.
* Emotes need to be added to the game. It's about time, people have been screaming for years. Give us the emotes that are already in game that we can do only from reading certain books, and give us the ability to purchase the emotes that were pulled because the STO devs complained. We're going to be having an influx of players from CoX. They will be used to far more emotes than we have at present. Let's try to keep these guys when we get them, okay?
* The maximum number of Globals possessed by Silvers should be increased, three or four fold. This will only help the game economy for everyone.
* Wind, Heavy Weapon and Mountain powersets need to be added to Nemeses.
Where would I like to see development? Here's the big question:
1. We've had some really good work from the team at expanding the current power sets over the last year. It would be nice to get a couple of new power sets over the year.
2, The Events system is a failure. It has produced no compelling content. No one is looking forward to the next Event in the same way as we looked ahead to a new Adventure Pack or Comic Series. Unless we get a radical improvement next time, I'd honestly rather see that work put to new Alerts.
3. A few new Rampage alerts need to be added to the rotation. One or two new Grabs and Bursts would be nice -- and I'm not meaning new villains (though adding 5-6 villains would be nice), but whole new Alerts, and not just Specials.
4. Speaking of Specials, raise the minimum level requirement. For pity's sake, no Level 6 belongs anywhere near Warlord or the Carrier. How could you not have noticed this?
5. I 've some serious misgivings about the proposed new Sidekick system, but I will wait. If this turns out to be "Make a sidekick and he/she/it gets to accompany you in instances in lieu of a Team member", my balance concerns will probably be satisfied. If you're essentially adding firepower in a game that's already easy and which is already adding devices and systems that to me, are steering it in the wrong direction (much as I enjoy unleashing my perma-Sapphire), then I'm very leery. but it's unfair to judge prematurely.
6. I'm not convinced that New Zones, which people are clamoring for, are a panacea. I need to be convinced that the new zone content will occupy players' attention for more than three weeks before they go back to running Alerts. The emptiness of upper level zones convinces me that they'll be a waste of time and resources under the current system.
7. Keep the bug fixes coming.
8. If you can, solicit members of the community to develop a good 10 page primer for CO costumes, builds, crafting and leveling. The basics only. Friends coming in from CoX have asked for this. Offer the contributors some free zen (and give some to Lohr, Reldin, Rune and Tekka for their work in making the wiki and building the community).
Edit:
9. If you can't ditch the chatban system, can you at least make it so a person can only be ignored once every twenty minutes by a particular handle, so one person can't do a cycle of ignore/unignore/ignore until someone gets a chatban? This should cut down on abuse of the system.
Future Development
I want to see a two-pronged effort to content development.
1. Repeatable new, story-light content. These include new alerts, but also, new lairs, new nemesis missions -- I repeat, NEW NEMESIS MISSIONS, BUILD ON THIS SYSTEM PLEASE! -- and new UNITY content for 40s. I really think that "2-3 new Nemesis Mastermind types and 2-3 new custom mission Nemesis chains (ie. a new beginning, special middle and end mission, with a couple of customized generics thrown in)" would be a huge attraction for returning players, as much of a PR Marquee as Vehicles or Alerts. Call it "Nemesis Reborn!". That'll attract the klds.
I really hope we can get another pass on Lairs soon. Improve the boss fights, the rewards, and give us some waypoints so we don't have to retrace the entire lair when we've died. And do the same for Open World cosmics. at least Kigatilik, Tako, and Clarence.
2. Non-repeating story-intensive content. Comic series can be the size of Whiteout (or even slightly shorter) and still work. New story chains, such as the Vibora Bay prequel, would be welcome. But the Foundry is the key.
Also, if you decide to rework old content, strip out two bunkers from Serpent Lantern and repackage it as a shorter, leaner AP.
If you decide to rework a zone, focus on Downtown Millennium City. Use Demonflame and Resistance as an excuse to strip MC of most of its mystical content (except for the missions around the Great Beast Bookstore) and replace them with some new enemies. Strengthen some of the ARGENT chain missions, and maybe replace DEMON and the Gadroon with the Roin'esh threat at high levels.
I know people hate empty overworld areas, but how about thinning some of the mobs that they need to fight are only generated when people enter an area with the appropriate quest?
Rework the ARGENT and PSI interiors, as they really look dated and generic, especially compared to the great work you did in Harmon Labs. Showcase the Adina Monroe mission: it's one of your best and a lot of players have probably never played it.
Hide the VIPER base in Millennium City and make uncovering it a big deal that requires serious effort. Turn "the search for VIPER" into a major storyline.
Don't throw out "War on Peace". That's a good open mission and a nice change of pace, as well as a good intro for the Lemurians.
Edit:
Conclusions
In the next-to-worst case scenario (ie. short of the game being dropped outright), we lose development entirely and the game goes on life support. Unfortunately, from my perspective, I think we're close to that point. I pretty much expect nothing, and therefore any sliver of new playable content comes as a surprise, and usually a good one. This does good things for my sanity. However, I still keep *hoping* for more. I would love to be told that we can reasonably expect substantive additions that goes beyond powers and cosmetics, much as the game needs those too. I know it's tedious to keep making hand-holding statements to the community, but how about some reassurance. I *want* to be wrong about the negativity of my assessment.
I haven't said anything about lockboxes. I will continue to say nothing about lockboxes. I'm more concerned with the state of actual gameplay than the latest revenue generating gimmick. The latest fad of the corporate suits do not make me angry. It's a business, folks. You can ignore it. Roll with it. Take your mouse when they appear in your inventory, drag them out, and let them go into the ether, and then keep playing the game you want. You don't buy every item that gets spammed in your email, or every ad you see on TV, or a lottery ticket every time you pass a kiosk. You can-- and will, once you realize what a lousy deal they are -- resist these just as easily. Don't stress yourself out, and don't tell yourself the game is "dying" because of these. It's an unfortunate development, but not a fatal one.
Edit: A final note to the devs.
I know you're working hard and I know you care about this product. Keep it up. I don't agree with every one of your decisions (at times, I disagree quite strongly) or on the stuff you're being forced to add to the game, but I know how hard this industry can be on the professionals who work in it, and I respect your effort. This game is still very much fun, and your efforts have helped it remain so. Thank you.
Bugs, and Not the Qulaar Kind
Recent developments, while well-meaning, have been little short of disastrous. The biggest one is the Nighthawk patch, which opened up more bugs than any development since the first Kitchen Sink patch. This was almost crippling to the game, and even worse than the first two KS patches -- at least I understood why those patches caused some foul ups, but the things that broke during the Nighthawk patch speaks to at least one of two disturbing possibilities: that Champions Online's code is so fragile that even minor changes can produce game-breakers, or that the coders are so incompetent that they introduce bugs into the code that have no relation to the events being worked on. Based on my past experience, I suspect the former rather than the latter. Code can be fragile. However for CO to remain competitive over the long term, its maintenance costs will need to be low, and this trend speaks against it.
This isn't the only discouraging trend.
We had the addition of Backups and Vehicles, which are neat ideas, but which have proven to be less than thrilling in execution (so far).
We had the team attempt to do Staff emanation points for powers, and it turned out to be another failure.
We had a Mega-Destroid event cancelled early because of an inexplicable bug in the auto team system which had never shown up prior to the event. To their credit, Cryptic's handling of this bug was first rate, and the cancellation was absolutely the right call, but it's still discouraging.
The Thaar arc and the Wells Pass arcs were vaporware. There is no new lair in Westside.
We had a Halloween event that was not completed in time. It's not a huge loss, but given the scarcity of new content, it's pretty glaring.
We've had Events. Honestly, as exercises in storytelling, they just don't rank in the same league as Comic Series and Adventure Packs, though I did like the way the Nighthawk moved to a climax, and packaging events, costumes, and a power set together makes for a nifty package. But the other encounters have been extremely lackluster.
Devs? What are Devs?
So State of the Game? Right now, unless Cryptic has some dev staff squirreled away that we don't know about, Cryptic isn't adding to the team. The hope that Cryptic will somehow add people back to CO when NWO is done -- rather than do the logical thing and keep that dev staff working on NWO add-ons to build that game and its audience -- is silly. We're not getting anyone else.
Will the Foundry team move over to CO? The only reason they'd do this is for the bragging rights that all of their games are Foundry-supported. I don't think this is enough.
For the most part, with the exception of a few new events and alerts, expect this game to remain largely in its current form for the duration of its lifespan. If you enjoy it, as I do, that's not necessarily bad news. But this game has a lot of potential that's never going to be developed, and that's sad. Essentially, we're continuing to reap the bitter fruit of what we've sown when we got angry about the prospect of paying for Vibora Bay. Cryptic's backburnered it since then, and it's never going to get anywhere close to that level of development again.
At this point, even the fluff is dying down. When was the last time we got a new costume set?
At this point, I only have three bits of good news: Trailturtle is easily the best community rep this game has had since launch. With apologies to Daeke and Tyshen, both of whom I liked, Trailturtle has been open, enthusiastic, accessible, and professional and if he doesn't care about this game, I sure can't tell. The cynical part of me is wondering how many weeks it'll be before he's transferred to a higher profile title.
In general, dev responsiveness has been much better than in times past; though the current producer has not been all that communicative, the rest of the team has made up for it.
The second bit of good news is that the new Alerts, namely the Warlord and the Hi Pan one, are pretty good, and if that quality is maintained, we can enjoy at least a few snippets of good content as the game winds down. It's not much, but it's better than nothing.
The third bit of good news is that the Powers team is making some good calls on the powers revisions, and have for some time.
Recommendations
So what's to do?
Cryptic has to bite the bullet and invest in this title. But it has to do so intelligently.
First, when Neverwinter goes Live, Cryptic needs to make a concerted effort to give us a good Foundry that 's tailored for the Champions Online experience ASAP. This means new UNITY missions, new Nemesis missions, new PVP maps. Even if they don't have time to give us as many maps or as many objects as in STO or NWO systems, just having the ability to make them will be a game changer.
Yes, a lot of player produced Foundry missions will be crap. But there'll be enough good stuff to add years to the life of the product. If the devs can't do the job, let us do it. It's not hard or expensive to hire an entry level artist or scripter and train him or her to cut out assets in preparation for a foundry system. That would be a good first step and should be starting now.
Second, steps need to be taken ASAP to balance out the options for character advancement in the game. Non-Alert PVE and PVP need incentivization. I really want to see a daily along the lines of "play 5 missions in a zone for 2000Q" or "play Stronghold or Zombie Apocalypse to the end and gain a minimum score" for 2000Q. Oh, and nerf Smash Alert XP a bit (say 25%). It's not wrong for Smash Alerts to be a better source of XP than missions that also gear you, but it is such an obvious win at the moment, and encouraging people to go through alerts undergeared doesn't make PuGs more pleasant either.
Third, I'd like to see some general improvements that need to be implemented soon. These include:
* the ability to form ten person raid groups will make it easier for SGs to run Rampages, and probably improve the queue for Gravitar and the new Carrier mission.
* Free for alls should be added as an option for Duels.
* The maximum number of people allowed in Hideouts increased to 15.
* Emotes need to be added to the game. It's about time, people have been screaming for years. Give us the emotes that are already in game that we can do only from reading certain books, and give us the ability to purchase the emotes that were pulled because the STO devs complained. We're going to be having an influx of players from CoX. They will be used to far more emotes than we have at present. Let's try to keep these guys when we get them, okay?
* The maximum number of Globals possessed by Silvers should be increased, three or four fold. This will only help the game economy for everyone.
* Wind, Heavy Weapon and Mountain powersets need to be added to Nemeses.
Where would I like to see development? Here's the big question:
1. We've had some really good work from the team at expanding the current power sets over the last year. It would be nice to get a couple of new power sets over the year.
2, The Events system is a failure. It has produced no compelling content. No one is looking forward to the next Event in the same way as we looked ahead to a new Adventure Pack or Comic Series. Unless we get a radical improvement next time, I'd honestly rather see that work put to new Alerts.
3. A few new Rampage alerts need to be added to the rotation. One or two new Grabs and Bursts would be nice -- and I'm not meaning new villains (though adding 5-6 villains would be nice), but whole new Alerts, and not just Specials.
4. Speaking of Specials, raise the minimum level requirement. For pity's sake, no Level 6 belongs anywhere near Warlord or the Carrier. How could you not have noticed this?
5. I 've some serious misgivings about the proposed new Sidekick system, but I will wait. If this turns out to be "Make a sidekick and he/she/it gets to accompany you in instances in lieu of a Team member", my balance concerns will probably be satisfied. If you're essentially adding firepower in a game that's already easy and which is already adding devices and systems that to me, are steering it in the wrong direction (much as I enjoy unleashing my perma-Sapphire), then I'm very leery. but it's unfair to judge prematurely.
6. I'm not convinced that New Zones, which people are clamoring for, are a panacea. I need to be convinced that the new zone content will occupy players' attention for more than three weeks before they go back to running Alerts. The emptiness of upper level zones convinces me that they'll be a waste of time and resources under the current system.
7. Keep the bug fixes coming.
8. If you can, solicit members of the community to develop a good 10 page primer for CO costumes, builds, crafting and leveling. The basics only. Friends coming in from CoX have asked for this. Offer the contributors some free zen (and give some to Lohr, Reldin, Rune and Tekka for their work in making the wiki and building the community).
Edit:
9. If you can't ditch the chatban system, can you at least make it so a person can only be ignored once every twenty minutes by a particular handle, so one person can't do a cycle of ignore/unignore/ignore until someone gets a chatban? This should cut down on abuse of the system.
Future Development
I want to see a two-pronged effort to content development.
1. Repeatable new, story-light content. These include new alerts, but also, new lairs, new nemesis missions -- I repeat, NEW NEMESIS MISSIONS, BUILD ON THIS SYSTEM PLEASE! -- and new UNITY content for 40s. I really think that "2-3 new Nemesis Mastermind types and 2-3 new custom mission Nemesis chains (ie. a new beginning, special middle and end mission, with a couple of customized generics thrown in)" would be a huge attraction for returning players, as much of a PR Marquee as Vehicles or Alerts. Call it "Nemesis Reborn!". That'll attract the klds.
I really hope we can get another pass on Lairs soon. Improve the boss fights, the rewards, and give us some waypoints so we don't have to retrace the entire lair when we've died. And do the same for Open World cosmics. at least Kigatilik, Tako, and Clarence.
2. Non-repeating story-intensive content. Comic series can be the size of Whiteout (or even slightly shorter) and still work. New story chains, such as the Vibora Bay prequel, would be welcome. But the Foundry is the key.
Also, if you decide to rework old content, strip out two bunkers from Serpent Lantern and repackage it as a shorter, leaner AP.
If you decide to rework a zone, focus on Downtown Millennium City. Use Demonflame and Resistance as an excuse to strip MC of most of its mystical content (except for the missions around the Great Beast Bookstore) and replace them with some new enemies. Strengthen some of the ARGENT chain missions, and maybe replace DEMON and the Gadroon with the Roin'esh threat at high levels.
I know people hate empty overworld areas, but how about thinning some of the mobs that they need to fight are only generated when people enter an area with the appropriate quest?
Rework the ARGENT and PSI interiors, as they really look dated and generic, especially compared to the great work you did in Harmon Labs. Showcase the Adina Monroe mission: it's one of your best and a lot of players have probably never played it.
Hide the VIPER base in Millennium City and make uncovering it a big deal that requires serious effort. Turn "the search for VIPER" into a major storyline.
Don't throw out "War on Peace". That's a good open mission and a nice change of pace, as well as a good intro for the Lemurians.
Edit:
Conclusions
In the next-to-worst case scenario (ie. short of the game being dropped outright), we lose development entirely and the game goes on life support. Unfortunately, from my perspective, I think we're close to that point. I pretty much expect nothing, and therefore any sliver of new playable content comes as a surprise, and usually a good one. This does good things for my sanity. However, I still keep *hoping* for more. I would love to be told that we can reasonably expect substantive additions that goes beyond powers and cosmetics, much as the game needs those too. I know it's tedious to keep making hand-holding statements to the community, but how about some reassurance. I *want* to be wrong about the negativity of my assessment.
I haven't said anything about lockboxes. I will continue to say nothing about lockboxes. I'm more concerned with the state of actual gameplay than the latest revenue generating gimmick. The latest fad of the corporate suits do not make me angry. It's a business, folks. You can ignore it. Roll with it. Take your mouse when they appear in your inventory, drag them out, and let them go into the ether, and then keep playing the game you want. You don't buy every item that gets spammed in your email, or every ad you see on TV, or a lottery ticket every time you pass a kiosk. You can-- and will, once you realize what a lousy deal they are -- resist these just as easily. Don't stress yourself out, and don't tell yourself the game is "dying" because of these. It's an unfortunate development, but not a fatal one.
Edit: A final note to the devs.
I know you're working hard and I know you care about this product. Keep it up. I don't agree with every one of your decisions (at times, I disagree quite strongly) or on the stuff you're being forced to add to the game, but I know how hard this industry can be on the professionals who work in it, and I respect your effort. This game is still very much fun, and your efforts have helped it remain so. Thank you.
/
Post edited by canadascott on
0
Comments
However, I fear that it won't do any good. With CoX shutting down, this is the time to jump in and position CO as the successor to the Big Superhero Game. We should be seeing lots of Dev posts, lots of in-game events, lots of player/dev interaction... but it still feels as if the game is on life support. When was the last time you saw an in-game GM?
I've been playing CO ever since beta. I want the game to succeed. I want to see it thrive. But unless Cryptic/PWI step up, it's not going to happen. Nobody will want to spend money on a game if it's obvious that it's just going to go to the next Cryptic game.
I skimmed this thread and find it's actually cost effective to make these changes and additions, (err, no I lied, not all of them are cost effective, especially the Foundry idea, but whatever).
/signed
Also, if they are fully embracing the rotten Chinese style F2P Business Model, then the people working on NWO will be relocated to a new game and NWO will be quickly forgotten. I do hope I'm wrong and PWI actually, you know, studies anything about Western MMORPG Markets and Traits.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
...the ultimate Contrast Moe (or not).
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
While I don't agree that the Foundry will solve Champions Online's problems (at all), I think that the ideas presented here are top-class and would definately improve the game, especially a proposed reworking of older game content and a review of the Nemesis system.
The Doctor on the PDB
Fahrenheit on the PDB
I think this is one of the best games I have played but hate the way it's being handled of late. Please Cryptic and PWE make the changes to make this game the game it can be so we will be happy to spend money on it to make your profits.
[SIGPIC]http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd175/Fifer71/mandrakesigmark3.jpg[/SIGPIC]
critical yet constructive
i respect this
I just hope that the CO team actually read the whole entire post. This by no means is a 'doom' post, and is very credible. I too have been here since Sept 09 and have been discouraged from continuing writing Build guides. I hope that CO will take advantage of being possibly alone in competition (I highly doubt DCUO is any competition at all).
How can we convince PWE (or whomever) that CO has potential and can be highly profitable if invested in it?
@Man.of.Light
Light Star Alliance (my toons with build guides & videos)
................................................
Nature Powerset
................................................
@Man.of.Light
This. This right here. I've been saying this for so long now, that this game has such great potential that's never being realized. I feel they'd rather make a quick and easy buck than make any long term content that's actually worth buying, and it's hurting the game so much.
I agreed with pretty much every thing written and with some of the responses too it. this was well written and probably spot on for how a lot of (not all, but a good percentage) of the players and fans feel.
...Some people actually like to explore and get a feeling like they can move about unconstrained around a persistent world. Instanced content is just not able to bring that feeling the same way (even when its large instanced zones like Multifaria in Resistance?though, I wouldn?t mind an open world version of it). The real issue with the current zones is this:
1) Lack of repeatable content. Granted, I think that in some ways this has been an issue with MMOs in general rather than CO exclusively. But big zones full of non-repeatable content = lots of wasted work and a bad idea. I think lots of MMOs now are going around that by making the bulk of their content repeatable. In TSW almost every mission can be redone (missions go into cooldown once you complete them for several hours and after that you might go back to do them again). And GW2 uses events that periodically auto-refresh giving you the chance to participate in them every time you pass by, and character levels are scaled to the area.
A similar approach to zone development would make the content in zones more versatile and could give people a reason to go back to those zones over and over again, and use an area they particularly like to do the bulk of their leveling. After all, what are Alerts but a way to do the same content over and over again? I would rather do that in an open world sometimes than in a small square box with a single fight.
2) Little or no reason to go back. Related to point #1 above, there is very little reason to go back to some zones after you've done all the non-repeatable content there. More reasons to re-visit those zones wouldn't hurt. We need more stuff to do that take us to the existing zones as well as any hypothetical new ones (which I know I'm likely never going to see at this point).
3) People are sick of the existing zones already. With the exception of VB those are the same zones we've had since launch, and VB came just a few months after it. Which, coupled with points 1 and 2 above, I think may also account for the lack of people in those zones.
Yes, all of these changes are needed.
Thanksgiving comes early this year.
Consider the OPs post our community seasonal greeting.
"Just keep on doing what it looks like you should be doing, no matter how crazy it seems" -Kevin Flynn
This right here, word for word.
And fantastically well done, Thundrax. CoX is closing in less than three weeks, and what has Cryptic done here to make themselves known as 'the game that all former players want to go play!'?
Sadly, not that much. Especially with the obvious bugs that are plaguing the system right now that new players -WILL- encounter.
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Seconded. Loved that whole summary.
Outstanding post. Cryptic/PW please take note. CO is an awesome game that needs some serious attention. It will grow into something big and successful if you let it. It has tons of potential. Superheroes are not going away anytime soon. Look at the number of superhero movies coming out over the next few years. Take note and take advantage.
On a side note: I would like to see more zones though. That is a big issue for me.
Unfortunately, I doubt this will reach anyone who might care in cryptic/PW, and if it does, I'm not sure what good it'll do.
Buuuuuuuut...here's to hoping!
I posted a kitty!
=^ _ ^= Kitty Lives!
Yeah, I tend to think that as well.
But I will raise a glass to hoping!
Cheers!
Heroic Roleplayer @epelesker | PRIMUS Database Moderator | Brigade Advocate
I too share concerns that while a new zone sounds appealing, it could easly end up a ghost town.
If foundry If the devs don't at least start talking about adding foundry by the end of 2013 i will be very disappointed.
Also, is foundry not capable of being monetized?
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
I would be in VB more if it was ever daytime.
@Scrizz :biggrin:
The best way to start improving the game would be for Cryptic to come through on that promise.
Here's a post, mine, from the wayback machine that has some quotes (one leads to a dead link which, I think, was the thread where Jack promised better QA), http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=1470807&highlight=leitmotif#post1470807
See I just don't understand that. If I were an executive at Cryptic, the minute that I heard the doors were closing on CoX, I would have held a meeting and said, "Let's get this **** rolling, what do we need to do to get them here and keep them?"
@Lohr
Well first off, let's sucker a few of them into buying lifetime accounts so they're here forever. The on the fence people we target with a sub forcing them to be here for a certain amount of time. Next we hit the others with a sale of Freeform slots at 50% off. The remaining ones we'll milk with lockboxes.
Blast fax kudos all around. End meeting.
As I mentioned in my earlier post that depends on the implementation. We need more repeatable content and stuff to do (hopefully, other than just farming VB costume unlocks) within zones to keep us going there. But yeah, I agree that if 90-100% of all the content in a zone is non-repeatable and there's nothing else to do they're a waste (in this and every other MMO). But that's a failing of themepark MMOs that I think more current games like TSW and GW2 are starting to break away from.
Seriously, they should have done that way back when DCUO had just gone F2P and CO was actually on top of the food chain, and arguably the "best" superhero MMO out there--not just as a matter of personal preference, but because it had overall better features than the other two. Now its so far behind on the race I wonder if it will ever pick up.
I think there's two problems with that -
1) You actually care about this game whereas the executives likely don't; at least not the way the developers and players do. They want to make Cryptic profitable, which leads to...
2) We probably don't have the foundation to make the improvements/expansions required to attract and then maintain the CoX playerbase within the short amount of time until they close without unrealistic amount of resources.
We launched unfinished, Jack all but said so in interviews, and the 6 months after launch were just trying to catch up to bare-bones. Everything since has been polishing the rough job or starting over while squeezing out what they could, but CO had already taken a pretty hard blow population and credibility-wise.
The dev turnover rate here has been less than promising from the start, what with everyone and their grandmother being promoted to EP at some point, and I don't imagine things being that much better at STO.
Assuming there was interest in boosting CO, it's likely that even bringing Devs back that were here previously (since they have experience and less training needs) might not be possible because there aren't any left (except maybe Tumerboy).
Between Nemesis, lack of real crafting, a single story arc for leveling, no endgame to speak of, two (three) dead zones, and now the introduction of vehicle systems all on the pending list, and foundry deeply entrenched in the "not gonna happen" list there's just too much to bring up to par in the 3 months they would have had, and another failed push like FFA, On Alert and that other one we had would likely just end up looking like another black eye.
Doing it quietly instead and letting the players come to us is a bit of saving face, and in the end the executives probably figured they could keep the base they have now and keep going, or risk more investment on new customers that would be likely dissappointed before the return on investment was a profit.
But I may be being overly cynical.
I agree with this, but to put another spin on it, we also have way too much space for the given amount of missions. Consider the entire top right and top left sides of the MC map. There is nothing happening there. At all.
The entire western and eastern borders also contain all of 3 missions - A Secret Sale, Gold and Iron, and that one Worm in the Sewers mission.
The top part of MC contains about 5 missions with the Gadroon from Mayte Sanchez... so why is she way the fudge downtown, and why are the Gadroon split way the hell out in Canada with absolutely no tie between them, story-wise? At least Viper has Imported from Canada to bring that gap together.
While another zone would be great, we really don't need it. We need to make better use of the zones we already have, fill them in with more personality and individual characteristics and fully realized story, and stop relying on traveling to the other side of the map to pad out missions.
How many times do we need to go to Burt Jackson for a continuing mission? And for no reason - just structure them so that one mission begins at the end of the previous one, make some cohesion and evolving story - now you actually have to do one mission in the chain at a time instead of clearing out 10 at once while not paying attention, you're slowing down the players progress without pointless travel tedium, you're strengthening the story you're telling, and each mission completion regains meaning, while realizing the world your traversing more deeply and forcing players to pay more attention to their surroundings rather than simply zipping by everything back and forth.
Bump up the xp for completing the missions (since doing so takes slightly longer) and offer Mei Ling (or whatever her name is) as an alternate contact taking you through chinatown (or whatever it's called), and you've now doubled the amount of leveling paths, while enriching the story.
Now, you throw in some more Bank Heist type missions (which is what I thought what Alerts were going to be - popping up randomly throughout the zone, and then larger, queable team missions like the nighthawk thing were going to be events) for genuine super-hero-ey repeatable content?
Could even make Dailies for Q/XP/G/Whatever by having BASH For Charity events or Alert Recreation Theatre For Dying Children where the villain has a bobble head for the crowds (plays like an alert) and combat can be used for public entertainment with a noble cause behind it.
There's a million ways to flesh out our zones while introducing "moar content" by simple, minimal restructuring of things already in game, and tightening the areas/wasting less space. Our nemesiseses should seriously be dropping clues to meet them in Bank Heists and Alerts like, every hour or so.
I don't think CO was /ever/ top of the heap in terms of features, subscribers, revenue, or profits after its release. CO certainly did release with more systems in place than CoH (PvP, market, crafting, Nemesis, an underwater zone) ... but I don't think many people would claim those aspects were done to particularly high standards.
Even Jack Emmert, CEO of Cryptic, said CO was not up to scratch:
I'll get to the next bit of the quote in a second, but I think some context should be added -- between CoH's launch and CO's launch, CoH had time to add a lot of spit, polish, and new features to the game. Jack's context is that CO and STO were better than CoH, at launch ... but CoH had had years' worth of development post-launch. And that people compare new games to what's currently on the market, not "game at launch" to "game at launch" -- i.e., gamers in general no longer pay it forward to see an MMO grow and evolve.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6041/not_so_cryptic_neverwinter_and_a_.php?print=1
Considering that, around the time of this interview, Cryptic had managed to bork Lemuria for 2 weeks, broke the game with the Kitchen Sink, and alienated many of its players with new content being gated (for everyone, including LTs) ... Jack's repeated promises to improve communication and QA ring hollow. And point towards a game that wasn't the top of the pack.
As for the sidekick system, I prefer if they worked on the nemesis system in a way that we could freeform our nemesis so that if new powers are added to the pool the nemesis creator wouldn't be outdated. Once that works you can use the same system with the sidekick creator. Also be smart about it, if you (Cryptic of course) do it like STO it would be fine. (aka only works in instances) Unless it gets restricted to just ONE sidekick which would kind of suck. But if you can code it so 4 sidekicks in instances that are replaced by players like STO and only one outside of instances (open world) just to show off then that's cool. Look at what other games are doing with sidekicks/companions in terms of quality of life. They being able to sell your unwanted loot, or craft while you're offline are points that we need.
Speaking of crafting, as much as I love mods and fusions we don't have a crafting system anymore and that's a shame. I thought you were working on improving it not replacing it with something that other games treat as an addition to crafting.
Last on my petition list would be MORE Open Missions. Everyone is talking about Dynamic Events in MMOs and all that crap and while I haven't experienced any of them yet, reading about them sounds a LOT like Open Missions here so what gives? Still looking forward to those Open World invasions alert types you guys mentioned a while back, I lost faith in you, don't let my hopes die too.
You get a pitiful sum of resources, a recognition token appropriate to the level of the open mission, an unmodifiable piece of mission-level green gear (if you are lucky) and a perk.
If you are a perk-hunter, doing an open mission more than once per-character is deeply silly.
If you are not a perk-hunter, doing an open mission is deeply silly.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you aren't paying for it, you aren't the customer; you are the product being sold.
Dollar, dollar, bill, yo. Cash rules everything around you and me.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Are you seriously arguing that a large chunk of the playerbase doesn't chase the activities with the highest ROI within their time budgets?
"Press buttons! Pretty lights! Numbers go up!"
Smash Alerts give significantly more XP for the time allocated, even accounting for the typical failure rates.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you aren't paying for it, you aren't the customer; you are the product being sold.
Dollar, dollar, bill, yo. Cash rules everything around you and me.
Seriously, there's a LOT of untapped real estate in every zone in this game. I remember running around a lot of blocks in the periphery of VB that had nothing to do there. A huge chuck of the east section has almost nothing to do there, save one or two missions, followed by a couple of blocks that are there just for show. The Desert even has an area full of Demon that NEVER had any missions attached to it or to anything do around that area, etc.
I'd still would like to see a new zone eventually just to have a new landscape to visit. But there's a lot that can still be done to give us further content and viable leveling paths just with the zones we have now. Especially if they figure out a way to make them repeatable and prevent us from fully outleveling them with scary monster tech, or scaling them to our level (or us down to their level) or something of the sort.
That seems like an old interview--NW had just been announced, they even refer to it as a co-op RPG rather than a MMO and PW apparently wasn't on the picture yet. DCUO and CoX weren't F2P yet at that time. And I'm not sure that those bits you quoted necessarily disprove what I said. They were more about the bad rap CO and STO got at launch, and about people basing their expectations around WoW throw their perception of games out of whack.
I was speaking of a time that came after that, when DCUO and CoX had just gone F2P, and a lot of people in this community seem to feel that CO was still the better game in many respects (despite its many failings), with more advanced character creator, freeform system, etc. But rather than bank on this, with their longer experience running a F2P game (CO had been F2P for a while at the time, and had been running on a cash shop since launch) and superior character creator and such, they just level DCUO and CoX have the superhero MMO market and focused entirely on NW (and to an extend STO) instead.
Which is the main reason I don't bother with open missions. If they served a purpose as leveling content I would play them all the time, cuz the basic format is good and not so different from the idea of "dynamic events" in GW2. Its just that the way they work now feels kinda pointless and I usually out level them just doing regular content around the area.
Apples and oranges. The theme of the game is irrelevant when we're discussing things from a purely gameplay perspective.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Happily processing LOL's for over 300 days and counting . . .
VARIANT
"Nearly all men can withstand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
-Abraham Lincoln-
To be fair, the game's in better shape than it was 1-2 months ago. At least some of the more egregious bugs have been squashed, though a few new ones keep popping up, it has been getting better. The new rewards for Special alerts is also a step in the right direction, IMO.
Looking at the patch notes for tonight's PTS shows that Cryptic is responding to complaints in a timely fashion, and that's encouraging too.
Relevel the Destroids to act as an alternative to Wells Pass. Finally get rid of Reign of Frogs and put in the Whiteout base. Bullet for Bissel is now where Socrates sends you to find Viper. It can't be that difficult to remove and replace mobs.
Wait? Whaaaa..?
This is defintiely good to know.
I appreciate all the info.
VARIANT
"Nearly all men can withstand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
-Abraham Lincoln-
Love almost everything you suggested; especially the above. The Nemesis system is indeed a wonderful addition to the game and would love to see more content around this. These types of additions are probably easier and don't involve making major changes to the game engine like Foundry or Vehicles.
Would still love to see a new leveling zone such as the Moon or Hudson City.
Foundry would indeed be amazing; but probably a lot more resource intensive. Would still love it though.
I'd like to be able to log on without having to DELETE MY OLD CRYPTIC ACCOUNT NAME AND ENTER MY PWE ACCOUNT NAME.
EVERY.
DAMN.
TIME.
It's only 2 numbers. But, DAMN. They can't (read: WON'T) fix a little thing like that, and y'all are expecting all this other stuff?
Suck it up. Fire 'em all. Get back to basics.
kthxbye.
When XP earnings during a Double-XP Weekend still feel like I'm underperforming,
there's something terribly wrong with the reward system...
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Original Join Date: Feb 2010.
I get that. My advice is to enjoy the game and the community for as long as they hold your interest, and leave the jaded pessimism to us vets.
And please, Cryptic, prove me wrong about my expectations on the future development of this title. I am happy to be wrong about the things I'm pessimistic about, and more than glad to admit when I'm wrong.
Thundrax, this game would be so much better if you were in charge of it.