The method that gets favored for experiencing the game is the non-alert content. There is more to it, more variety, and (according to some) more fun to be had. Alerts provide more XP on the way to 40 and then little (or no) reward at all for level 40's.
There's little to do at lv 40 and little reason to get better gear in this game anyways. Most of the game is geared towards leveling and alting. I'm not saying that's the way it should be, but given that that is the way it is Alert seem to provide more immediate rewards for what this game seems to be geared for.
There's also more of non-Alert content because Alerts are a relatively new addition. In time that may change given the current direction of development.
The non-alert content requires little or no skill, effort, or knowledge of the game/world from players.
But still requires more effort and time devoted to complete it than Alerts and provides knowledge of the game world, which was my point.
If you don't like faster and easier then don't do alerts. Its not as if there is a competition to reach max level the fastest. I do find the idea that alerts are too easy/fast when a player can level to 40 with an energy builder and a t0 attack, or can reach level cap in a few days, without alerts to be kind of funny. Its like complaining that a new brand of chewing gum trivializes the difficulty of chewing gum and walking at the same time.
I didn't say I don't like to faster and easier. I said that Alerts provide faster and easier rewards, and by extention implied that that places them out of balance with the rest of the content in the game--balance being my real concern. If one piece of content requires more time and/or effort to do for lesser rewards (or XP specifically) than another, which is the most likely that the majority of the game's population will play?
Is the rest of the game trivially easy? I believe so. But I don't see how adding more content that makes things even easier than they already are better. Also my use of the word "trivial" (while perhaps not accurate) was not necessarily in reference to game play difficulty but to the level of attention that's expected of players to give to the world itself. They (Alerts) seem to change the focus of the game from a persitent world (which IMO is an integral part of what MMO's are) to small instanced content with little or no substance.
And I can accurately state that the one that requires the least amount of work (alerts) provides me with the least in the way of rewards. XP is the only area in which alerts provide the most rewards, and XP is only one of many rewards in the game.
I can't really argue with that. My use of the word "rewards" was too general. Perhaps I should have mentioned XP specifically instead.
There's little to do at lv 40 and little reason to get better gear in this game anyways. Most of the game is geared towards leveling and alting. I'm not saying that's the way it should be, but given that that is the way it is Alert seem to provide more immediate rewards for what this game seems to be geared for.
There's also more of non-Alert content because Alerts are a relatively new addition. In time that may change given the current direction of development.
But still requires more effort and time devoted to complete it than Alerts and provides knowledge of the game world, which was my point.
I didn't say I don't like to faster and easier. I said that Alerts provide faster and easier rewards, and by extention implied that that places them out of balance with the rest of the content in the game--balance being my real concern. If one piece of content requires more time and/or effort to do for lesser rewards (or XP specifically) than another, which is the most likely that the majority of the game's population will play?
Is the rest of the game trivially easy? I believe so. But I don't see how adding more content that makes things even easier than they already are better. Also my use of the word "trivial" (while perhaps not accurate) was not necessarily in reference to game play difficulty but to the level of attention that's expected of players to give to the world itself. They (Alerts) seem to change the focus of the game from a persitent world (which IMO is an integral part of what MMO's are) to small instanced content with little or no substance.
I can't really argue with that. My use of the word "rewards" was too general. Perhaps I should have mentioned XP specifically instead.
Balanced does not have to mean everything is exactly the same. Alerts giving more XP while other options provide more resources, costume pieces, and/or other rewards is a form of balance. If looking for one type of reward you do the content focused on it. If looking for another reward you do the content focused on that reward. Is the reward system unbalanced because I have an infinitely greater chance of getting New Shadows costume pieces in VB than I do in SMASH alerts ? No, just different rewards for different content.
Alerts do not inherently provide faster and easier rewards in general. THey provide one specific reward faster than it can be gained elsewhere while most rewards in the game are more readily earned outside of alerts.
Let me repeat that: Most rewards in the game are more readily earned outside of Alerts. Alerts are actually the worst way for earning most rewards in the game. The only reward that can be more readily gained in alerts than elsewhere is one that you can completely hard cap for a character in a week of non-alert play. The only imbalance in rewards here is against alerts, not for them.
I cannot stress that highlighted part enough. Alerts are good for one specific reward. If you decide that one specific in game reward, one of many, is the only one of interest to you, that you do not care about the other rewards, that is not an imbalance in the system.
So hey there Champions, long time player more recently more of a complainer. I'm going to make this short and to the point. "Did Alerts Ruin This Game or Am I Being Silly?"
Here is why I think it did:
All new content seems to be related to Alert's in some way.
With Alerts you can level from 1 - 40 without leaving Millenium City.
We've gone from being solo players who could team to being forced to team together.
Alert's aren't even all that varied just the same lather rinse repeat game we've been playing but in bite sized bits.
Other questions Alerts bring up:
Why are Alert's level 30?
Why isn't there a level requirement?
Why are all default Nemesis in Nemesis Alerts using the same powerset?
[...]
Am I wrong?
You're right that alerts (Smash Alerts in particular) are a part of the problem.
No one is being forced to team. Teaming has been one of COs major weaknesses and alerts helped with that to some extent.
Whatever you're smoking or eating to give you that level of euphoria... I would like some too please!
It's "forced" because you HAVE TO get a full team queued to get the content to launch. Lemuria, Monster Island, Sky Command, and PvP queues are prime examples of this. You don't have to play them, but if you want to play them you have to get a full queue.
Futhermore... People have learned that the only tactic you need is to fling yourself at the enemy. Alerts are teaching people how to play like Leeroy Jenkins, not how to play smarter as a team.
Yes. I think they make people too lazy to learn, more unwilling to buy content packs, and ignore all game content, i have hundreds of reasons and no doubt in my mind that Alerts were a terrible business decision bearing absolutely no income or population increase.
You need to re-learn how mmo's make cash, Alerts does nothing for you and nothing for us but bad experiences.
On this point, Gravitar should have been the boss of her own instance like Vikorin or Bronze King. You made a good fight...and ruined what would have been a great True-Content addition to a game with high demand for content.
Please consult any basic text books on business. Demand and supply.
Examples of initially small dev teams who made something big:
Natural Selection (free)
Natural Selection 2
Counter-Strike 1.0 (before Valve bought them)
Sven Co-op (free)
S&I
Minecraft
The time gap between when CO stopped releasing Comic Series and started releasing Alerts instead was a matter of a few months. The examples you give (at least the ones with which I am familiar-Mincecraft and NS) spent years in development. If we used those games' development as a comparison we would not have seen anything in CO between DEC '11 and sometime in early 2014.
Futhermore... People have learned that the only tactic you need is to fling yourself at the enemy. Alerts are teaching people how to play like Leeroy Jenkins, not how to play smarter as a team.
Completely agreed. I do not think of Alerts as team content, but as mob content. There is a huge difference between a football team and a random mob of guys with a football.
Alerts giving more XP while other options provide more resources, costume pieces, and/or other rewards is a form of balance. If looking for one type of reward you do the content focused on it. If looking for another reward you do the content focused on that reward. Is the reward system unbalanced because I have an infinitely greater chance of getting New Shadows costume pieces in VB than I do in SMASH alerts ? No, just different rewards for different content.
Partly disagree, the reason why is because people shouldn't feel that they are obligated to play alerts to keep up with their peers.
Also are you not also personally beholden to the stance that you "do not have the right to tell others how to play"? Because if you do this with incentives, you're indirectly doing just that, right?
Let me repeat that: Most rewards in the game are more readily earned outside of Alerts. Alerts are actually the worst way for earning most rewards in the game. The only reward that can be more readily gained in alerts than elsewhere is one that you can completely hard cap for a character in a week of non-alert play. The only imbalance in rewards here is against alerts, not for them.
I cannot stress that highlighted part enough. Alerts are good for one specific reward. If you decide that one specific in game reward, one of many, is the only one of interest to you, that you do not care about the other rewards, that is not an imbalance in the system.
One word that proves you wrong: Questionite.
Tell me, what is the fastest way to get Questionite which can then be exchanged for Zen?
Then also tell me what is a reliable way to get ~4g every few minutes these days?
Then let's talk about Smash Alert farming, and the mods dropped from 301+ crafting skill nodes, and finally PvP rewards
Tell me, what is the fastest way to get Questionite which can then be exchanged for Zen?
Then also tell me what is a reliable way to get ~4g every few minutes these days?
Then let's talk about Smash Alert farming, and the mods dropped from 301+ crafting skill nodes, and finally PvP rewards
I get much more questionite (and not by a small margin) doing nemcon Q-runs than I could hope to match with Alerts.
I get resources much more quickly farming in the VB graveyard than I could hope to match in alerts. I also do not have to wait for a specific alert to appear as I would if I wanted to earn that 4g you mention.
I get better mods (and more too !) farming than I could hope to match in alerts. I also do not have to wait for a specific alert to appear to do so.
The only reward that comes more quickly from alerts is XP. Everything else I can get in quantity more readily outside of alerts.
Partly disagree, the reason why is because people shouldn't feel that they are obligated to play alerts to keep up with their peers.
Also are you not also personally beholden to the stance that you "do not have the right to tell others how to play"? Because if you do this with incentives, you're indirectly doing just that, right?
I do not think that people are obligated to play alerts to keep up with their peers. If my peers play alerts while I play other aspects of CO's content they will fall behind me, not the other way around.
As it stands, as mentioned previously, the only area in which alerts provide greater rewards than other content is XP...and you can get a character to max level in a week without alerts.
The time gap between when CO stopped releasing Comic Series and started releasing Alerts instead was a matter of a few months. The examples you give (at least the ones with which I am familiar-Mincecraft and NS) spent years in development. If we used those games' development as a comparison we would not have seen anything in CO between DEC '11 and sometime in early 2014.
Haha! You may have a point there, it can take a lot more time. With Charlie Cleveland's team we always like to use the "Soon *trademark symbol*" phrase borrowed from the Valve forums.
I was commenting on a matter of effort and managment. It's a lie because I've seen small teams accomplish so much. I'm talking major thing like game engines, not relatively minor bug, reward, and balance fixes (and new maps) like we keep asking for year after year from this team.
Also, Unknown Worlds Entertainment blogged their whole development cycle and Minecraft stayed in beta for ages getting feedback and adding stuff gradually. In fact ALL of those development teams were in continuous communication. Here however, the only developer I see communicating with any regularity for the past several months is TrailTurtle. Where are the other people in the office?
Why don't they seek customer input? Or even just say that we're doing it this way because this is the development direction we've chosen to stick with, these are our baseline standards.
Completely agreed. I do not think of Alerts as team content, but as mob content. There is a huge difference between a football team and a random mob of guys with a football.
Excellent metaphor! And I agree completely agree in turn.
Like a group of random college men you put on a team and give them a basketball, verus bringing in an organized, top-ranked NCAA Men's Basketball team.
Would be a blowout if you pitted the two against each other... The NCAA ranked team is also probably going to complain about things being trivialized.
The NCAA ranked team is also probably going to complain about things being trivialized.
Literally laughed out loud.
I agree that there is a difference between developing a new game and developing new content for an existing game. I just wanted to keep some perspective regarding time requirements. One talented developer could potentially produce the greatest, most in depth, etc game ever created...given enough time.
I wouldn't go so far as to say alerts ruined this game but, they've left me with absolutely zero confidence that any permanent content aside from more alerts will be introduced to CO and without that, I find it really difficult to even bother to log in because alerts bore the hell out of me. I've already ran all the content repeatedly, including soloing lairs on elite for the additional challenge and there just isn't really much else to do after that aside from running alerts to try out new builds which lost it's excitement for me after seeing how little there really is to do with those completed builds. I even have level 40s with powers and advantage points unspent simply because they didn't need anything else and I didn't feel like taking powers just to take them if they didn't fit the theme or weren't needed.
To me, alerts are just an excuse to not put in the effort to make better content. I'd be fine trading all of them for another good lair, action pack, or comic series and would not mind waiting at all if I knew there were going to be more of them coming out as well.
On this point, Gravitar should have been the boss of her own instance like Vikorin or Bronze King. You made a good fight...and ruined what would have been a great True-Content addition to a game with high demand for content.
Please consult any basic text books on business. Demand and supply.
How would Gravitar being inside an instance that you have to walk to have made her any better of an experience than what she is in a readily available alert que? Gravitar being in a lair makes me think of 10 man raids from WoW... and if you're proposing that we start having wow-style raiding content, I'm gonna have to go ahead and shove a big NO in your face, followed by an ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Futhermore... People have learned that the only tactic you need is to fling yourself at the enemy. Alerts are teaching people how to play like Leeroy Jenkins, not how to play smarter as a team.
Name for me one part of the game that doesn't fall under this currently? Lairs, even on elite, can be solo'd. Adventure packs don't require you to play as a team. Therakial's Temple? There's a gimmick in there where you have to stand in a line and face each other... that's just a gimmick that doesn't teach anyone anything that isn't specifically related to itself. Gravitar? Nope again, just keep your own self alive and you're good. I've done everything in this game both as a well-built freeform, a poorly built freeform, and various archetypes, and I can honestly say I don't see a single area in this game where team work or tactics apply (other than pvp).
Why is anyone concerned that alerts might not be teaching people the skills and knowledge that they don't actually need?
Especially when you consider that mission content definitely in no way whatsoever comes even remotely close to teaching them anything about teaming, tactics, or difficulty.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
How would Gravitar being inside an instance that you have to walk to have made her any better of an experience than what she is in a readily available alert que?
Because then I could go in and fight her with my friends, instead of being forced to team with strangers. Community is everything in a game like this. I'm not anti-social, far from it, but being unable to control my teammates means being subjected to impolite strangers and trolls. By all means, offer public alert queues for people without friends, but for those of us who would rather just team with our SG and friend list (which is growing all the time, so don't call me anti-social) should have that option. As it is, I would often rather run Andrith or Mandragalore with friends than do gravitar instances with trolls.
Because then I could go in and fight her with my friends, instead of being forced to team with strangers. Community is everything in a game like this. I'm not anti-social, far from it, but being unable to control my teammates means being subjected to impolite strangers and trolls. By all means, offer public alert queues for people without friends, but for those of us who would rather just team with our SG and friend list (which is growing all the time, so don't call me anti-social) should have that option. As it is, I would often rather run Andrith or Mandragalore with friends than do gravitar instances with trolls.
Well see here's the thing... you can go do that... and for greater reward than what you get from Gravitar. Oh wait.... are you actually the other person in this game willing to admit that Gravitar is fun?
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Well see here's the thing... you can go do that... and for greater reward than what you get from Gravitar. Oh wait.... are you actually the other person in this game willing to admit that Gravitar is fun?
I do still team up with friends and do Andrith and Mandragalore (though Grav gives better rewards than BK). The issue is that those lairs are going on 4 years old. Isn't it a bit silly that the best team content dates back to the game's launch? All I'm saying is that I would rather the devs expend their limited efforts on a new lair, rather than alert content.
I do think gravitar is fun, under specific circumstances: when everyone in the instance is defeated except people who I know and like. What makes boss fights fun for me is watching my character be awesome, and my friend's characters be awesome as well. Strangers are just clutter (unless their characters are cool, but then I'll make friends with them).
But as for gravitar and her mechanics, I like her. I've spent many hours soloing her. I would love it if she was put in an instance where I could team with friends, and I would probably run that for years (Vikorin didn't have any good rewards prior to On Alert adding his costume pieces, and we still teamed up to do his instance regularly).
Balanced does not have to mean everything is exactly the same. Alerts giving more XP while other options provide more resources, costume pieces, and/or other rewards is a form of balance. If looking for one type of reward you do the content focused on it. If looking for another reward you do the content focused on that reward.
If we were talking about a purely metagame rewards like Questionite, or something thematically appropriate like more money from bank robbery or similar missions I might agree, but given that we're talking about XP I don't. XP is supposed to represent character advancement and progression. It is a measure of the character's learning and ability development as a result of their efforts and achievements, etc. The idea of having the content that takes the least amount of time and effort to complete awarding the highest amount of XP (or whatever points for advancement might be called in any given game/system) goes completely against the idea of what XP is meant to represent in RPGs.
Arbitrarily tying a particular type of reward to a certain type of content does not make that content the appropriate source for that type of reward. And XP is a universal type of reward. Its not something that should be limited to one specific type of content, and the only measure that makes sense in determining which type of content should give the greatest amount of XP is the content's challenge and/or time for completion, not arbitrarily making one type of content the go to content for getting mass amounts of it simply "because".
If Smash Alerts had a limit of how often they could to be used to get a one time XP boost (perhaps once every 8 hours or so), then things might be different, because then it could be explained as simply a "boost", which might still be a metagame explaination but it would be made more manegable by placing limits. But as it is right now we can just run them over again over again and gain far more XP than for doing any other type of content, which indirectly forces you to do one type of content you might not like if you want to progress quickly in the game, simply "because" it was arbitrarily made the highest XP reward content in the game.
Is the reward system unbalanced because I have an infinitely greater chance of getting New Shadows costume pieces in VB than I do in SMASH alerts ? No, just different rewards for different content.
No, it is not unbalanced because tying New Shadows costume pieces to that enemy faction's native zone. However, making that zone the single zone thematic costume pieces can be acquired from (which was the case until the addition of Recognition Rewards), would be out of balance. Fortunately that has been addressed and an even better (IMO) system for acquire such rewards can been provided. But there is still some unbalance in that VB still drops those costume pieces, in addition to dropping Recognition Tokens for even more costume pieces or other rewards.
Let me repeat that: Most rewards in the game are more readily earned outside of Alerts. Alerts are actually the worst way for earning most rewards in the game. The only reward that can be more readily gained in alerts than elsewhere is one that you can completely hard cap for a character in a week of non-alert play. The only imbalance in rewards here is against alerts, not for them.
And in that sense, I would say that non-XP rewards from Alerts are unbalanced in favor of other content and perhaps should be improved somehow.
Still, one has to wonder what makes Smash Alerts more worthy of farming your way to lv 40 than slugging your way through Collosi. And what changed for the devs since then that made speed leveling with Collosi "bad" back in those days, but doing the same with Smashes now "ok"?
Smashes are not the same because Collossi farming gave also abnormal amounts of money
while you get nearly nothing when doing alerts.
Alerts didn't ruin the game. If not for Alerts I would have quit this game a looooong time ago.
There is only so many times that you can run the same leveling path.
And I find the assumption that had they not done alerts we would get anything as large as a zone hilarious.
Look, they've basically shut down development to nothing in this game. Alerts or not the amount of content we would be getting at this time would be the freaking same.
Let's be real here folks. :rolleyes:
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
Because then I could go in and fight her with my friends, instead of being forced to team with strangers. Community is everything in a game like this. I'm not anti-social, far from it, but being unable to control my teammates means being subjected to impolite strangers and trolls. By all means, offer public alert queues for people without friends, but for those of us who would rather just team with our SG and friend list (which is growing all the time, so don't call me anti-social) should have that option. As it is, I would often rather run Andrith or Mandragalore with friends than do gravitar instances with trolls.
Exactly. This is what I meant when I was saying "forced" earlier (like 2 or 3 pages back).
Also I'm going to bother Smoochan some more by supporting the suggestion by Snake Wildlife (aka. honestresearcher) that Gravitar should be a raid. As it is, it's basically a run-in and fight the boss with no story or context whatsoever. Totally lazy, corner-cutting development.
Oh yeah, and also consider her costume drop rate chance please... I swear it feels like one in a million... I've never once gotten her diamond necklace or haute coutere in what must be like 300 or more times running her. I meant what the **** is with that BS odds?! At the current rate, her market price for her costume drops should be tens of thousands of gold/globals (well out of the reach to all but the 1% plutocrat portion of the population).
Name for me one part of the game that doesn't fall under this currently? Lairs, even on elite, can be solo'd
You're making a fallacy here.
You are not accounting for people who are not level 40. You aren't accounting for freeform versus archetype. You are not accounting for that most "end-game" lairs attract level 40's with good gear whereas alerts attract anyone from level 6 to 40 and more often than not they are a low-level trying to speed level up. You aren't even accounting for the type of player that plays each!
You are not accounting for people who are not level 40. You aren't accounting for freeform versus archetype. You are not accounting for that most "end-game" lairs attract level 40's with good gear whereas alerts attract anyone from level 6 to 40 and more often than not they are a low-level trying to speed level up. You aren't even accounting for the type of player that plays each!
I do notice you weren't actually able to provide an example of content that actually requires teamwork to a degree beyond "hey healer... heal sometimes".
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
If you asked me, I'd say Alerts should have been made solely for level 40's end-game, there should always be one alert type active at all times, and the rewards should be higher. No complaints about noobs, no barren zones outside of Millenium City, no waiting endlessly for that one Burst Alert, 'less' complaining about no end-game content, and more reason to actually do them. Makes sense to me.
If you asked me, I'd say Alerts should have been made solely for level 40's end-game, there should always be one alert type active at all times, and the rewards should be higher. No complaints about noobs, no barren zones outside of Millenium City, no waiting endlessly for that one Burst Alert, 'less' complaining about no end-game content, and more reason to actually do them. Makes sense to me.
While it's easy to say "create your own team to avoid teaming w/ people you don't like", I feel that some sort of middle ground is what's called for - allow a player to set a "minimum team-with preference", which would restrict the lowest level players you are willing to team with in an Alert. This setting could never be higher than your own level, (to prevent a level 6 from making sure they're always on a team that can carry them), and the setting should be secondary to players who do not enable this filter - in other words, if you set the filter on, you will have to wait until a suitable team if found, instead of holding everyone else up (that isn't using a filter).
Of course, given the problems with the current queuing system, this is little more than a pipe dream...
Regarding Alerts in general - I don't see them as ruining the game, but they are most definitely an easy band-aid to the larger problem that is a shortage of content. It's easy enough to simply cycle through Alerts to level quickly, but it also greatly reduces the desirability to go and play existing content. Of course, little of this content is actually memorable anyway, so there's little to draw players to want to replay it.
<::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::)xxxxxxxx(:::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> "Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
there is no easy solution I agree, but I'm glad that we're discussing it. I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I didn't mean to say that the game is Doooooooooooooomed but I definitely think alerts did little more than act as a bandaid and I find that to be a problem.
All new content seems to be related to Alert's in some way. What are you talking about? Vehicles? Those are our content so far.
With Alerts you can level from 1 - 40 without leaving Millenium City. Nobody is forcing you to do this.
We've gone from being solo players who could team to being forced to team together. Nobody is forcing you once again.
Alert's aren't even all that varied just the same lather rinse repeat game we've been playing but in bite sized bits. And? Nobody is forcing you to play them!
Other questions Alerts bring up:
Why are Alert's level 30? I dunno maybe the gap between level 6s and 40s in terms of amount of power and so-and-so would be too vast?
Why isn't there a level requirement? Because with the already small population there would be 1 hour to 15 hour queues.
Why are all default Nemesis in Nemesis Alerts using the same powerset? Because some people in your team have no nemesis setup.
Let's think back when we had zero alerts. Nobody teamed up anyway. It wasn't any different. Except the population has increased since Alerts...
All new content seems to be related to Alert's in some way. What are you talking about? Vehicles? Those are our content so far. Gravitar came out, Nighthawk has an alert.
With Alerts you can level from 1 - 40 without leaving Millenium City. Nobody is forcing you to do this. You can, you can, you can. I am not saying you have to I am just saying that by making it an option why would you want to waste time travelling? Also why would the devs bother with new zones if they know that people would rather grind alerts?
We've gone from being solo players who could team to being forced to team together. Nobody is forcing you once again. If you do either Sky Command or Gravitar or Alerts, yes, you are forced to team it is not a choice it is the only way.
Alert's aren't even all that varied just the same lather rinse repeat game we've been playing but in bite sized bits. And? Nobody is forcing you to play them! No, no one is forcing me to play them, but having played through the story multiple times it would be nice to do something different and if I don't want to grind missions alerts are my only other choice.
Other questions Alerts bring up:
Why are Alert's level 30? I dunno maybe the gap between level 6s and 40s in terms of amount of power and so-and-so would be too vast?
Why isn't there a level requirement? Because with the already small population there would be 1 hour to 15 hour queues.
Why are all default Nemesis in Nemesis Alerts using the same powerset? Because some people in your team have no nemesis setup. What I was getting at was why did the Dev's not use random powersets instead of sticking with one for the default nem?
Let's think back when we had zero alerts. Nobody teamed up anyway. It wasn't any different. Except the population has increased since Alerts...
Gravitar came out, Nighthawk has an alert. Gravitar was out because people wanted some kind of 10 man raid or w/e something they probably picked up from WoW. Nighthawk is just another alert it's not really new content.
You can, you can, you can. I am not saying you have to I am just saying that by making it an option why would you want to waste time travelling? Also why would the devs bother with new zones if they know that people would rather grind alerts? Are you telling me that PWE has to hold our hands and tell us how we spend our time in CO because we lack self-control? Well apparently that isn't the case with myself, if I wanted to something else I do it. I don't need some corporate powerhouse changing content and removing ones I liked just because some people think they're being "forced into something."
If you do either Sky Command or Gravitar or Alerts, yes, you are forced to team it is not a choice it is the only way. Nobody is forcing you to enter those or even open this game to play it. They made it this way so there really is no choice for you. The fact that you want to play
these means you are agreeing to team up with people just like you did with the terms and agreement. It's like if you are living in a certain country and aren't leaving
that means you are agreeing with all the rules there.
No, no one is forcing me to play them, but having played through the story multiple times it would be nice to do something different and if I don't want to grind missions alerts are my only other choice. Grinding mission alerts are not your other only choice. The other choice is turning off the game and coming back to it when you feel like playing again.
If it was new missions and new zones you want then you would of simply asked for that. You don't like the playstyle of alerts you don't queue for them. Simple as that. I ask the same thing to people that make topics that start with "Oh this game sucks! I'm leaving" and I wonder why they haven't left and keep coming back to comment.
So, xgco, because there is an option for someone to play in a fashion you disapprove of, this is "ruining" the game?
I've never subscribed to the concept of BadWrongFun, personally. Too many Stop Having Fun Guys out there already...
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I've never knew what to call players who live in their own little world and think the design of the game should be centered around them are called till today.
Actually, I'd agree. Mostly because pre-alert, if you wanted a raid, you'd at least find people willing to partake. Anymore? When they're not broken, and not being fixed because everyone's doing alerts and only a few of us publicly mention it/care, most of the response is some sort of no. A few major exceptions exist, silverspar and Cyrone being the major ones to spring to mind, but a random pug? I've been chat muted for trying to arrange one in zone. *conversationally*, and not by just saying "lfg therakiel's" or whatever.
By ruin I don't mean DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. By ruin I mean "content is being ignored in favor of this quick bite sized new stuff". I've never seen an mmo that specifically ignores established content in favor of making newer and lamer content.
I'd actually kill for a Mandragalore run. I haven't done one in *months*. I can't be alone in being driven off from time to time, from sheer boredom. And let's be clear, I'm from beta, so the old content never bored me. This bite sized "go kill this one boss. Wow, good job, have a shiny" stuff, however, gets old in a matter of weeks.
In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008.
I still pug for 2-3hrs on an AP/CS once every week and do lair runs every other day with friends or pugs. Doesn't matter that I've done those to death.
Sometimes I just happen to chance upon a LFG call. I usually pug with my support or tank toons and leave the rest at home, so they are usually welcomed in pugs.
I've also joined for Tanker Tuesday twice this month. I'm there for the social enjoyment.
And I make it a point to organize lair runs occasionally. Maybe having a cute toon name helps with LFG calls.
Oh, and stay friends with some of the larger active SGs, and I make myself known as a ready and eager pugger. I get to be the fifth wheel every now and then.
I think Alerts provided a brief burst of activity and sustain the game slightly better than it was before, because of the lack of content most people want to play. (Yes, there's been lockboxes and vehicles. I don't think most people care about lockboxes and vehicles as content)
Before, there was pretty much nothing to do once you had done everything a few times. Now, there's something to do. And while it unfortunately encourages a lot of people to skip the content that DOES exist, it's... at least something. And people have an easy way to team up and 'do something.'
But, in the end, lack of development is the big problem.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Great if you want new missions, zones, Comic Series (I believe Adventure Packs are pretty much the same except Comic Series got... comics and a more well introduced story). They're in need. But don't take Alerts from others.
But I do have to warn you every Comic Series/Adventure Pack ends up becoming a "Dark Speed" grindfest in the end. That's why I think a Foundry is in order. Sure people would make grind-ez missions but that doesn't mean you have to do that either.
I don't need some corporate powerhouse changing content and removing ones I liked just because some people think they're being "forced into something."
Precisely.
Don't like alerts? Don't play them. The rest of the content is still here and very little if any of it is unsoloable so no one else's play choices are affecting other peoples options on what they can choose to play. For people that feel they must team...Supergroups. Friends list. Form 5 man team of people you know and enjoy your day. It really is that simple. If you're having trouble finding 5 people you know to play with and you feel teaming is essential to your fun the alert system is not the problem...
I'd actually kill for a Mandragalore run. I haven't done one in *months*. I can't be alone in being driven off from time to time, from sheer boredom. And let's be clear, I'm from beta, so the old content never bored me. This bite sized "go kill this one boss. Wow, good job, have a shiny" stuff, however, gets old in a matter of weeks.
Bulletin Board Code. The code people use to give the text in their posts bold, italics, underlined, etc.
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
I know how to use BB code... I'm just too darned LAZY to do it
The Forumite formerly known as Galeforce.
If you want my money, there is a fairly simple way to get it since I am fairly free with how I spend it. First, produce something I consider to be worth buying. Second, offer it up for sale. Don't lock it behind a gambling scam. If I want something, I am perfectly happy to pay for it. But I will not purchase a CHANCE to get it, When I pay money, I have a perfectly logical right to expect to get what I want.
I would say that Alerts... Changed the game.
Not entirely in a bad way, but it did put the focus more on what Champs has mostly been focused on from the beginning, from what I've seen: fun action set in what is mostly goofy but fun Golden Age with Silver tints on the edges.
With the way Alerts are written, it fits well into that: instantly slotting yourself into a quick meaningless action-fighting scenario that makes up 90% of the comic genre the game's based on for that flavour of comic time period.
Instead of long story arcs like we had where one mission lead to another, now we have an admittedly disjointed but slightly more flexible thing for new content where Alerts let us slot our own mental storylines into the scenarios given.
Admittedly I'm not a fan of how PvP's been shunted to one side, mainly because, as ridiculous as it got at times with PvP builds, the scenario did work within the context of the genre, wrestling matches with superheroes WOULD happen in a superhuman-containing world, and is a very easy character background to slot into the game mechanics, the "washed out former Badass Normal strongman wrestler hoping to make his break on the superhero arenas with montage sequences"...
But Alerts themselves are not bad things. Indeed... I'd even go so far as to say I might prefer them.
Admittedly I would like some missions, and the Events that are scheduled, like the Lemuria one, play as they look, then that's fine by me.
Alerts for the silly action fighting, and carefully craft out storylines in the form of Events, maybe, hopefully, that are on a rotation for those who want to have stories.
If anything else, we need to stop the practice of starting up something new and amazing, then abandoning it once time reaches a certain point. Now we have Alerts, we must keep them and keep on growing the regular rotation to contain all known named villains, mainly so we don't get slightly odd moments where Foxbat is robbing a bank AND attacking City Hall at the same time. Unless we can find a way to say every major villain is involved in a big time travel storyline with Tachyon in which case YES DO THAT.
On the same vein as growing what we have, hideouts have so much that could be added to them, especially as most of them have a hidden room (accessible by glitches or the camera recording mode) which was intended for dueling and crafting. Look within yourself, you know it to be cool.
And we should throw more Comic Series in, before they start to be something forgotten. And please, stick them in UNTIL HQ? It's annoying to see Defender call out to me when it's just the repeatables he's offering. Come on, the Ren Cen is a major playerhub, with everyone passing by, having Defender call out whenever you're near when you've done a gigantosaurus amount of missions just seems silly.
As for what comic series could be done, a while back, (Shortly after I made a suggestion to the same effect, which was awesome, talk about lightning-fast dev reaction), there was an UNTIL report suggesting we could be getting an adventure on Destruga, since the Island of the Destroyer scenario in the books seems very easily translateable into an in-game Comic Series what with the scenario being "Dr Destroyer's robots in a facility (hello technological based tunnel systems we already have the models for everywhere in the game, using mobs we already have!) on a remote island (hello easily stealable Monster Island models!) as heroes investigate the 'abandoned' ruins" which makes even more sense to be active now Destroyer is back.
Also, JAG, http://jag-artist.org/ , who does the amazing concept art, had some nice pieces on his old blog before the one I've linked (but I figured I'd link to his current site since people might want to see his current awesome stuff) the proposed time travel/Jack the Ripper Comic Series that may or may not be in Development Hell. So that's a thing that could be happening.
So, has Alerts ruined things?
Nope. They're what we can have relatively quickly with what we've got, and are generally of really great quality.
However, having a small amount of staff because we really don't have a big enough playerbase to support the size of team who could work to fufill the big goals planned/promised/UNTIL-report'd does hurt us.
I think. In my opinion. I'm probably wrong on a lot of this and long posts from me tend to fracture into side points and give me headaches so I stop being as sensible on my logic-trails and start going increasingly off-topic.
I haven't read through this whole discussion but I just wanted to give my opinion that the entry level missions in CO are the best I've enjoyed in practically any game. I actually enjoy levelling up from 1-15 in Westside! Then doing the adventure packs/comic strips before going most of the way up to 27 in City Center and Downtown then moving on to Monster Island and eventually the awesome VB apocalypse.
If I'm missing a bit of XP to get where I want, I go and do my favourite missions from Canada or the Desert (and in any case I always do Stronghold/Menton because I simply love it!)
Which, to get to the point, means that I don't do XP alerts simply because I see no interest in rushing headlong to the level cap and missing 90% of the game?s content. Though I can see why some altaholics would probaly want to get there a lot quicker.
===================================
I am not bad at punctuation!
MMORPGs are just bad at recognizing non QWERTY.
I dont think it ruined the game I think it added a different leveling route. Dont like alerts level the old fashioned way all the old mishes are still there.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I dont think it ruined the game I think it added a different leveling route. Dont like alerts level the old fashioned way all the old mishes are still there.
Comments
There's little to do at lv 40 and little reason to get better gear in this game anyways. Most of the game is geared towards leveling and alting. I'm not saying that's the way it should be, but given that that is the way it is Alert seem to provide more immediate rewards for what this game seems to be geared for.
There's also more of non-Alert content because Alerts are a relatively new addition. In time that may change given the current direction of development.
But still requires more effort and time devoted to complete it than Alerts and provides knowledge of the game world, which was my point.
I didn't say I don't like to faster and easier. I said that Alerts provide faster and easier rewards, and by extention implied that that places them out of balance with the rest of the content in the game--balance being my real concern. If one piece of content requires more time and/or effort to do for lesser rewards (or XP specifically) than another, which is the most likely that the majority of the game's population will play?
Is the rest of the game trivially easy? I believe so. But I don't see how adding more content that makes things even easier than they already are better. Also my use of the word "trivial" (while perhaps not accurate) was not necessarily in reference to game play difficulty but to the level of attention that's expected of players to give to the world itself. They (Alerts) seem to change the focus of the game from a persitent world (which IMO is an integral part of what MMO's are) to small instanced content with little or no substance.
I can't really argue with that. My use of the word "rewards" was too general. Perhaps I should have mentioned XP specifically instead.
Balanced does not have to mean everything is exactly the same. Alerts giving more XP while other options provide more resources, costume pieces, and/or other rewards is a form of balance. If looking for one type of reward you do the content focused on it. If looking for another reward you do the content focused on that reward. Is the reward system unbalanced because I have an infinitely greater chance of getting New Shadows costume pieces in VB than I do in SMASH alerts ? No, just different rewards for different content.
Alerts do not inherently provide faster and easier rewards in general. THey provide one specific reward faster than it can be gained elsewhere while most rewards in the game are more readily earned outside of alerts.
Let me repeat that: Most rewards in the game are more readily earned outside of Alerts. Alerts are actually the worst way for earning most rewards in the game. The only reward that can be more readily gained in alerts than elsewhere is one that you can completely hard cap for a character in a week of non-alert play. The only imbalance in rewards here is against alerts, not for them.
I cannot stress that highlighted part enough. Alerts are good for one specific reward. If you decide that one specific in game reward, one of many, is the only one of interest to you, that you do not care about the other rewards, that is not an imbalance in the system.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
You're right that alerts (Smash Alerts in particular) are a part of the problem.
This is a lie you are believing!
Examples of initially small dev teams who made something big:
Whatever you're smoking or eating to give you that level of euphoria... I would like some too please!
It's "forced" because you HAVE TO get a full team queued to get the content to launch. Lemuria, Monster Island, Sky Command, and PvP queues are prime examples of this. You don't have to play them, but if you want to play them you have to get a full queue.
Futhermore... People have learned that the only tactic you need is to fling yourself at the enemy. Alerts are teaching people how to play like Leeroy Jenkins, not how to play smarter as a team.
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
Yes. I think they make people too lazy to learn, more unwilling to buy content packs, and ignore all game content, i have hundreds of reasons and no doubt in my mind that Alerts were a terrible business decision bearing absolutely no income or population increase.
You need to re-learn how mmo's make cash, Alerts does nothing for you and nothing for us but bad experiences.
On this point, Gravitar should have been the boss of her own instance like Vikorin or Bronze King. You made a good fight...and ruined what would have been a great True-Content addition to a game with high demand for content.
Please consult any basic text books on business. Demand and supply.
The time gap between when CO stopped releasing Comic Series and started releasing Alerts instead was a matter of a few months. The examples you give (at least the ones with which I am familiar-Mincecraft and NS) spent years in development. If we used those games' development as a comparison we would not have seen anything in CO between DEC '11 and sometime in early 2014.
Completely agreed. I do not think of Alerts as team content, but as mob content. There is a huge difference between a football team and a random mob of guys with a football.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Agreed. Although this primarily applies to game mechanics.
Partly disagree, the reason why is because people shouldn't feel that they are obligated to play alerts to keep up with their peers.
Also are you not also personally beholden to the stance that you "do not have the right to tell others how to play"? Because if you do this with incentives, you're indirectly doing just that, right?
One word that proves you wrong: Questionite.
Tell me, what is the fastest way to get Questionite which can then be exchanged for Zen?
Then also tell me what is a reliable way to get ~4g every few minutes these days?
Then let's talk about Smash Alert farming, and the mods dropped from 301+ crafting skill nodes, and finally PvP rewards
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
Yes.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I get much more questionite (and not by a small margin) doing nemcon Q-runs than I could hope to match with Alerts.
I get resources much more quickly farming in the VB graveyard than I could hope to match in alerts. I also do not have to wait for a specific alert to appear as I would if I wanted to earn that 4g you mention.
I get better mods (and more too !) farming than I could hope to match in alerts. I also do not have to wait for a specific alert to appear to do so.
The only reward that comes more quickly from alerts is XP. Everything else I can get in quantity more readily outside of alerts.
oh, and what PvP rewards ? :eek:
I do not think that people are obligated to play alerts to keep up with their peers. If my peers play alerts while I play other aspects of CO's content they will fall behind me, not the other way around.
As it stands, as mentioned previously, the only area in which alerts provide greater rewards than other content is XP...and you can get a character to max level in a week without alerts.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Haha! You may have a point there, it can take a lot more time. With Charlie Cleveland's team we always like to use the "Soon *trademark symbol*" phrase borrowed from the Valve forums.
I was commenting on a matter of effort and managment. It's a lie because I've seen small teams accomplish so much. I'm talking major thing like game engines, not relatively minor bug, reward, and balance fixes (and new maps) like we keep asking for year after year from this team.
Also, Unknown Worlds Entertainment blogged their whole development cycle and Minecraft stayed in beta for ages getting feedback and adding stuff gradually. In fact ALL of those development teams were in continuous communication. Here however, the only developer I see communicating with any regularity for the past several months is TrailTurtle. Where are the other people in the office?
Why don't they seek customer input? Or even just say that we're doing it this way because this is the development direction we've chosen to stick with, these are our baseline standards.
Excellent metaphor! And I agree completely agree in turn.
Like a group of random college men you put on a team and give them a basketball, verus bringing in an organized, top-ranked NCAA Men's Basketball team.
Would be a blowout if you pitted the two against each other... The NCAA ranked team is also probably going to complain about things being trivialized.
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
Literally laughed out loud.
I agree that there is a difference between developing a new game and developing new content for an existing game. I just wanted to keep some perspective regarding time requirements. One talented developer could potentially produce the greatest, most in depth, etc game ever created...given enough time.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
To me, alerts are just an excuse to not put in the effort to make better content. I'd be fine trading all of them for another good lair, action pack, or comic series and would not mind waiting at all if I knew there were going to be more of them coming out as well.
How would Gravitar being inside an instance that you have to walk to have made her any better of an experience than what she is in a readily available alert que? Gravitar being in a lair makes me think of 10 man raids from WoW... and if you're proposing that we start having wow-style raiding content, I'm gonna have to go ahead and shove a big NO in your face, followed by an ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Name for me one part of the game that doesn't fall under this currently? Lairs, even on elite, can be solo'd. Adventure packs don't require you to play as a team. Therakial's Temple? There's a gimmick in there where you have to stand in a line and face each other... that's just a gimmick that doesn't teach anyone anything that isn't specifically related to itself. Gravitar? Nope again, just keep your own self alive and you're good. I've done everything in this game both as a well-built freeform, a poorly built freeform, and various archetypes, and I can honestly say I don't see a single area in this game where team work or tactics apply (other than pvp).
Why is anyone concerned that alerts might not be teaching people the skills and knowledge that they don't actually need?
Especially when you consider that mission content definitely in no way whatsoever comes even remotely close to teaching them anything about teaming, tactics, or difficulty.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Because then I could go in and fight her with my friends, instead of being forced to team with strangers. Community is everything in a game like this. I'm not anti-social, far from it, but being unable to control my teammates means being subjected to impolite strangers and trolls. By all means, offer public alert queues for people without friends, but for those of us who would rather just team with our SG and friend list (which is growing all the time, so don't call me anti-social) should have that option. As it is, I would often rather run Andrith or Mandragalore with friends than do gravitar instances with trolls.
Well see here's the thing... you can go do that... and for greater reward than what you get from Gravitar. Oh wait.... are you actually the other person in this game willing to admit that Gravitar is fun?
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
I do still team up with friends and do Andrith and Mandragalore (though Grav gives better rewards than BK). The issue is that those lairs are going on 4 years old. Isn't it a bit silly that the best team content dates back to the game's launch? All I'm saying is that I would rather the devs expend their limited efforts on a new lair, rather than alert content.
I do think gravitar is fun, under specific circumstances: when everyone in the instance is defeated except people who I know and like. What makes boss fights fun for me is watching my character be awesome, and my friend's characters be awesome as well. Strangers are just clutter (unless their characters are cool, but then I'll make friends with them).
But as for gravitar and her mechanics, I like her. I've spent many hours soloing her. I would love it if she was put in an instance where I could team with friends, and I would probably run that for years (Vikorin didn't have any good rewards prior to On Alert adding his costume pieces, and we still teamed up to do his instance regularly).
If we were talking about a purely metagame rewards like Questionite, or something thematically appropriate like more money from bank robbery or similar missions I might agree, but given that we're talking about XP I don't. XP is supposed to represent character advancement and progression. It is a measure of the character's learning and ability development as a result of their efforts and achievements, etc. The idea of having the content that takes the least amount of time and effort to complete awarding the highest amount of XP (or whatever points for advancement might be called in any given game/system) goes completely against the idea of what XP is meant to represent in RPGs.
Arbitrarily tying a particular type of reward to a certain type of content does not make that content the appropriate source for that type of reward. And XP is a universal type of reward. Its not something that should be limited to one specific type of content, and the only measure that makes sense in determining which type of content should give the greatest amount of XP is the content's challenge and/or time for completion, not arbitrarily making one type of content the go to content for getting mass amounts of it simply "because".
If Smash Alerts had a limit of how often they could to be used to get a one time XP boost (perhaps once every 8 hours or so), then things might be different, because then it could be explained as simply a "boost", which might still be a metagame explaination but it would be made more manegable by placing limits. But as it is right now we can just run them over again over again and gain far more XP than for doing any other type of content, which indirectly forces you to do one type of content you might not like if you want to progress quickly in the game, simply "because" it was arbitrarily made the highest XP reward content in the game.
No, it is not unbalanced because tying New Shadows costume pieces to that enemy faction's native zone. However, making that zone the single zone thematic costume pieces can be acquired from (which was the case until the addition of Recognition Rewards), would be out of balance. Fortunately that has been addressed and an even better (IMO) system for acquire such rewards can been provided. But there is still some unbalance in that VB still drops those costume pieces, in addition to dropping Recognition Tokens for even more costume pieces or other rewards.
And in that sense, I would say that non-XP rewards from Alerts are unbalanced in favor of other content and perhaps should be improved somehow.
Smashes are not the same because Collossi farming gave also abnormal amounts of money
while you get nearly nothing when doing alerts.
Actually that's a fair point. I forgot about Collosi money rewards.
There is only so many times that you can run the same leveling path.
And I find the assumption that had they not done alerts we would get anything as large as a zone hilarious.
Look, they've basically shut down development to nothing in this game. Alerts or not the amount of content we would be getting at this time would be the freaking same.
Let's be real here folks. :rolleyes:
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
Exactly. This is what I meant when I was saying "forced" earlier (like 2 or 3 pages back).
Also I'm going to bother Smoochan some more by supporting the suggestion by Snake Wildlife (aka. honestresearcher) that Gravitar should be a raid. As it is, it's basically a run-in and fight the boss with no story or context whatsoever. Totally lazy, corner-cutting development.
Oh yeah, and also consider her costume drop rate chance please... I swear it feels like one in a million... I've never once gotten her diamond necklace or haute coutere in what must be like 300 or more times running her. I meant what the **** is with that BS odds?! At the current rate, her market price for her costume drops should be tens of thousands of gold/globals (well out of the reach to all but the 1% plutocrat portion of the population).
You're making a fallacy here.
You are not accounting for people who are not level 40. You aren't accounting for freeform versus archetype. You are not accounting for that most "end-game" lairs attract level 40's with good gear whereas alerts attract anyone from level 6 to 40 and more often than not they are a low-level trying to speed level up. You aren't even accounting for the type of player that plays each!
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
I do notice you weren't actually able to provide an example of content that actually requires teamwork to a degree beyond "hey healer... heal sometimes".
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
While it's easy to say "create your own team to avoid teaming w/ people you don't like", I feel that some sort of middle ground is what's called for - allow a player to set a "minimum team-with preference", which would restrict the lowest level players you are willing to team with in an Alert. This setting could never be higher than your own level, (to prevent a level 6 from making sure they're always on a team that can carry them), and the setting should be secondary to players who do not enable this filter - in other words, if you set the filter on, you will have to wait until a suitable team if found, instead of holding everyone else up (that isn't using a filter).
Of course, given the problems with the current queuing system, this is little more than a pipe dream...
Regarding Alerts in general - I don't see them as ruining the game, but they are most definitely an easy band-aid to the larger problem that is a shortage of content. It's easy enough to simply cycle through Alerts to level quickly, but it also greatly reduces the desirability to go and play existing content. Of course, little of this content is actually memorable anyway, so there's little to draw players to want to replay it.
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
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What are you talking about? Vehicles? Those are our content so far.
Nobody is forcing you to do this.
Nobody is forcing you once again.
And? Nobody is forcing you to play them!
Other questions Alerts bring up:
I dunno maybe the gap between level 6s and 40s in terms of amount of power and so-and-so would be too vast?
Because with the already small population there would be 1 hour to 15 hour queues.
Because some people in your team have no nemesis setup.
Let's think back when we had zero alerts. Nobody teamed up anyway. It wasn't any different. Except the population has increased since Alerts...
|Champions Online Stuff ->| Roster | Copycat Heroes | Moments ||
Gravitar was out because people wanted some kind of 10 man raid or w/e something they probably picked up from WoW.
Nighthawk is just another alert it's not really new content.
You can, you can, you can. I am not saying you have to I am just saying that by making it an option why would you want to waste time travelling? Also why would the devs bother with new zones if they know that people would rather grind alerts?
Are you telling me that PWE has to hold our hands and tell us how we spend our time in CO because we lack self-control? Well apparently that isn't the case with myself, if I wanted to something else I do it. I don't need some corporate powerhouse changing content and removing ones I liked just because some people think they're being "forced into something."
If you do either Sky Command or Gravitar or Alerts, yes, you are forced to team it is not a choice it is the only way.
Nobody is forcing you to enter those or even open this game to play it. They made it this way so there really is no choice for you. The fact that you want to play
these means you are agreeing to team up with people just like you did with the terms and agreement. It's like if you are living in a certain country and aren't leaving
that means you are agreeing with all the rules there.
No, no one is forcing me to play them, but having played through the story multiple times it would be nice to do something different and if I don't want to grind missions alerts are my only other choice.
Grinding mission alerts are not your other only choice. The other choice is turning off the game and coming back to it when you feel like playing again.
If it was new missions and new zones you want then you would of simply asked for that. You don't like the playstyle of alerts you don't queue for them. Simple as that. I ask the same thing to people that make topics that start with "Oh this game sucks! I'm leaving" and I wonder why they haven't left and keep coming back to comment.
I've never subscribed to the concept of BadWrongFun, personally. Too many Stop Having Fun Guys out there already...
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By ruin I don't mean DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. By ruin I mean "content is being ignored in favor of this quick bite sized new stuff". I've never seen an mmo that specifically ignores established content in favor of making newer and lamer content.
I'd actually kill for a Mandragalore run. I haven't done one in *months*. I can't be alone in being driven off from time to time, from sheer boredom. And let's be clear, I'm from beta, so the old content never bored me. This bite sized "go kill this one boss. Wow, good job, have a shiny" stuff, however, gets old in a matter of weeks.
RIP Caine
RIP Caine
Sometimes I just happen to chance upon a LFG call. I usually pug with my support or tank toons and leave the rest at home, so they are usually welcomed in pugs.
I've also joined for Tanker Tuesday twice this month. I'm there for the social enjoyment.
And I make it a point to organize lair runs occasionally. Maybe having a cute toon name helps with LFG calls.
Oh, and stay friends with some of the larger active SGs, and I make myself known as a ready and eager pugger. I get to be the fifth wheel every now and then.
I have never been on a forum before where so many people did not know how to use BB Code.
Before, there was pretty much nothing to do once you had done everything a few times. Now, there's something to do. And while it unfortunately encourages a lot of people to skip the content that DOES exist, it's... at least something. And people have an easy way to team up and 'do something.'
But, in the end, lack of development is the big problem.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
But I do have to warn you every Comic Series/Adventure Pack ends up becoming a "Dark Speed" grindfest in the end. That's why I think a Foundry is in order. Sure people would make grind-ez missions but that doesn't mean you have to do that either.
Precisely.
Don't like alerts? Don't play them. The rest of the content is still here and very little if any of it is unsoloable so no one else's play choices are affecting other peoples options on what they can choose to play. For people that feel they must team...Supergroups. Friends list. Form 5 man team of people you know and enjoy your day. It really is that simple. If you're having trouble finding 5 people you know to play with and you feel teaming is essential to your fun the alert system is not the problem...
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How to build a freeform character...the Kenpo way
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Freeform Builds Directory (Last updated: 04/23/2016)
Serving since September, 2009 / 65 Characters, 63 Level 40's
Isn't that one bugged and unable to be completed?
.....what's BB code? >_>
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
Bulletin Board Code. The code people use to give the text in their posts bold, italics, underlined, etc.
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
The Forumite formerly known as Galeforce.
If you want my money, there is a fairly simple way to get it since I am fairly free with how I spend it. First, produce something I consider to be worth buying. Second, offer it up for sale. Don't lock it behind a gambling scam. If I want something, I am perfectly happy to pay for it. But I will not purchase a CHANCE to get it, When I pay money, I have a perfectly logical right to expect to get what I want.
Not entirely in a bad way, but it did put the focus more on what Champs has mostly been focused on from the beginning, from what I've seen: fun action set in what is mostly goofy but fun Golden Age with Silver tints on the edges.
With the way Alerts are written, it fits well into that: instantly slotting yourself into a quick meaningless action-fighting scenario that makes up 90% of the comic genre the game's based on for that flavour of comic time period.
Instead of long story arcs like we had where one mission lead to another, now we have an admittedly disjointed but slightly more flexible thing for new content where Alerts let us slot our own mental storylines into the scenarios given.
Admittedly I'm not a fan of how PvP's been shunted to one side, mainly because, as ridiculous as it got at times with PvP builds, the scenario did work within the context of the genre, wrestling matches with superheroes WOULD happen in a superhuman-containing world, and is a very easy character background to slot into the game mechanics, the "washed out former Badass Normal strongman wrestler hoping to make his break on the superhero arenas with montage sequences"...
But Alerts themselves are not bad things. Indeed... I'd even go so far as to say I might prefer them.
Admittedly I would like some missions, and the Events that are scheduled, like the Lemuria one, play as they look, then that's fine by me.
Alerts for the silly action fighting, and carefully craft out storylines in the form of Events, maybe, hopefully, that are on a rotation for those who want to have stories.
If anything else, we need to stop the practice of starting up something new and amazing, then abandoning it once time reaches a certain point. Now we have Alerts, we must keep them and keep on growing the regular rotation to contain all known named villains, mainly so we don't get slightly odd moments where Foxbat is robbing a bank AND attacking City Hall at the same time. Unless we can find a way to say every major villain is involved in a big time travel storyline with Tachyon in which case YES DO THAT.
On the same vein as growing what we have, hideouts have so much that could be added to them, especially as most of them have a hidden room (accessible by glitches or the camera recording mode) which was intended for dueling and crafting. Look within yourself, you know it to be cool.
And we should throw more Comic Series in, before they start to be something forgotten. And please, stick them in UNTIL HQ? It's annoying to see Defender call out to me when it's just the repeatables he's offering. Come on, the Ren Cen is a major playerhub, with everyone passing by, having Defender call out whenever you're near when you've done a gigantosaurus amount of missions just seems silly.
As for what comic series could be done, a while back, (Shortly after I made a suggestion to the same effect, which was awesome, talk about lightning-fast dev reaction), there was an UNTIL report suggesting we could be getting an adventure on Destruga, since the Island of the Destroyer scenario in the books seems very easily translateable into an in-game Comic Series what with the scenario being "Dr Destroyer's robots in a facility (hello technological based tunnel systems we already have the models for everywhere in the game, using mobs we already have!) on a remote island (hello easily stealable Monster Island models!) as heroes investigate the 'abandoned' ruins" which makes even more sense to be active now Destroyer is back.
Also, JAG, http://jag-artist.org/ , who does the amazing concept art, had some nice pieces on his old blog before the one I've linked (but I figured I'd link to his current site since people might want to see his current awesome stuff) the proposed time travel/Jack the Ripper Comic Series that may or may not be in Development Hell. So that's a thing that could be happening.
So, has Alerts ruined things?
Nope. They're what we can have relatively quickly with what we've got, and are generally of really great quality.
However, having a small amount of staff because we really don't have a big enough playerbase to support the size of team who could work to fufill the big goals planned/promised/UNTIL-report'd does hurt us.
I think. In my opinion. I'm probably wrong on a lot of this and long posts from me tend to fracture into side points and give me headaches so I stop being as sensible on my logic-trails and start going increasingly off-topic.
You should go read it.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
And quotes!
If I'm missing a bit of XP to get where I want, I go and do my favourite missions from Canada or the Desert (and in any case I always do Stronghold/Menton because I simply love it!)
Which, to get to the point, means that I don't do XP alerts simply because I see no interest in rushing headlong to the level cap and missing 90% of the game?s content. Though I can see why some altaholics would probaly want to get there a lot quicker.
I am not bad at punctuation!
MMORPGs are just bad at recognizing non QWERTY.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Precisely.
My Amazon author page
How to build a freeform character...the Kenpo way
Demon Keypo's Building Guide
Freeform Builds Directory (Last updated: 04/23/2016)
Serving since September, 2009 / 65 Characters, 63 Level 40's
It might be a problem for things like Therakiel's temple, admittedly.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?