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Lets Talk About the Level to 30 Item

crypticbuxomcrypticbuxom Posts: 4,585 Arc User
So the PTS now has this item that automatically levels a character to 30 and grants a primary heirloom set that scales with level and binds to account. So lets discuss this pay to 30 issue.

What is the point of this item? Why does Cryptic feel it needs to be an addition to the Store? How much will it cost and is the price justified?

What do you think? Please post your reason for your vote.

Lets Talk About the Level to 30 Item 50 votes

Positive
50%
kallethenriveroceannephtkaiserin#0958decorumfriendsbiffsmackwelldeadman20soulforgernbkxsstellariodragonsummerfields#1113hasukurobigradiiaceretrievercanadascottmawaynejennymachxtheravenforcepiercingwhistleiceih03 25 votes
Negative
20%
creamy096jonsillscodewar65crosschanseeker1235wraithshadow13ozanmeistersparklisinaxcelsior41uppermoist 10 votes
This doesn't make sense, because...
30%
iamrunebobj021960itsbrou#5396meedacthunistsistersiliconchuckwolfchampionshewolfdraogncrypticbuxomchaelkbluegrassbeastthelastsonofzodraighnroughbearmattachguyhumual 15 votes
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Comments

  • crypticbuxomcrypticbuxom Posts: 4,585 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    I personally feel that the only reason its being added is because of how easy it is to level a character to max and Cryptic is trying to capatilize on that by making it almost instantaneous. It doesn't really belong in a game that doesn't promise a level cap increase and more content to get through beyond level 40. If this was a game with 60+ levels and 5 more zones and the devs wanted a way for players to skip the first 40 faster to get to this new content, than it would feel more justified
  • draogndraogn Posts: 1,269 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    I think this is a waste, as mentioned else where it doesn't take long to get the level 30. Then when you get to 40, you either focus on a rampage gear grind or start over. The price for this will determine the over all feelings I have for it.
  • thelastsonofzodthelastsonofzod Posts: 658 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    I honestly don't see a need. Leveling to 30 is a breeze, and there's no real content to enjoy after max level anyway.
  • themightyzeniththemightyzenith Posts: 4,599 Arc User
    I'm pretty indifferent to this actually. On the one hand it does seem odd to me that they made it jump you to lvl 30 instead of straight to 40 and on the other hand I can't really see this item harming the game atm. It's not like many folks are running around doing missions anyway.

    I did hear some speculation that this may be a clue that we are going to get an increased level cap with some more content to cover it, but who knows.

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  • canadascottcanadascott Posts: 1,257 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    Positive
    A few players might level more quickly without really knowing how to play their character, but that happens anyway at the current rate of XP, with or without this device.

    At worst, harmless, and not worth getting upset about it. At best, it might add a little money to the dev team that isn't a lockbox or a power in a lockbox, probably drawing porting code from other Cryptic MMOs so it isn't even all that much of a dev time sink.

    If we're talking about taking a headstart, given that we have a "do such and such" campaign for Neverwinter, how about a cheap "unlock every zone" device, so more folks can access Vibora and other zones?
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  • cynicoolcynicool Posts: 160 Arc User
    For a game that has streamlined the leveling to the point where you can get through most levels without even leaving Millennium City I'm not sure why they'd want to make it even quicker to skip all the content and get to raiding. The only reason I suspect that this will be relevant is the new content will only be open to level 30+ characters. Also, maybe a level cap unlock, but if they did that they'd actually have to give us more powers to slot, more specializations, and so on. Which seems unlikely to happen in the near future (if ever).​​
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  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    What raiding?

    normally it is in a game with a lot of levels and a lot of endgame and raids.

    we don't have a lot of levels
    it's not hard to do them
    we have sweet FA in the way of endgame. a few lairs with not much in the way of Boss rewards and Rampage gear farming.

    The people who have a new concept that requires a lot of levels to try might be interested, depending on price.
    or new people who think because we have this, we have a lot of endgame.
    ​​
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  • itsbrou#5396 itsbrou Posts: 1,777 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    Doesn't make sense because Cryptic doesn't have a brand new expansion content to dive right into with this level boost. They have nothing we haven't already seen. This would have been more appropriate if there were an expansion pack.
    Brou in Cryptic games.
  • sistersiliconsistersilicon Posts: 1,687 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    Doesn't make sense because Cryptic doesn't have a brand new expansion content to dive right into with this level boost. They have nothing we haven't already seen. This would have been more appropriate if there were an expansion pack.

    That's my point. In the PTS thread, I pointed out that when LOTRO added Gift of The Valar, it was to get people out of Angmar and the Misty Mountains and into Moria and to get them their first Legendary Weapon. WoW added an insta-90 to get players out of Pandaria Cata the Argent Tournament Grounds so they could skip those 10 levels between Wrath of the Lich King and Warlords of Draenor.

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  • flyingfinnflyingfinn Posts: 8,408 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    Can this be used from lvl 40 to 30?
    Since most of the Alerty Stuff scales to lvl 30.....
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  • championshewolfchampionshewolf Posts: 4,375 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    Doesn't make sense because Cryptic doesn't have a brand new expansion content to dive right into with this level boost. They have nothing we haven't already seen. This would have been more appropriate if there were an expansion pack.

    Brou nails it. As I said on the PTR thread, we have never gotten our level cap increase that we were told we were getting. We have not had a new zone since Vibora Bay. We have not had a new dungeon since Vibora Bay. Rampages barely qualify as raid content, and only Fire and Ice really can count as a raid that might require more than one hero to complete. We don't have any end game progression (ie decent gearing system or items to chase after the fact). All new content we get in this game is scaled automatically to the level of the player, making any reason to level up pointless, and even then the new content we got last year was laughably mediocre at best.

    There is no reason for this level up item in game. It works in WoW because Blizzard wants people playing their new expansion. They want people playing their new dungeons, their new raids, their new leveling content. We haven't had any of that in over five years. When we get new zones, several new end game dungeons, maybe a few raids under our belt and a level cap increase, maybe then this would be justified. But considering it doesn't even take a week of casual playing to level cap anymore, this is a solid no, and all I do seeing is it pushing new people away once they do hit 40 and go, that's it?

    Since the major tagline has been "It's about the journey, and not the destination" by most in this community and Cryptic as an excuse as to why not to introduce endgame or higher level content, this idea is pretty much contradictory to that., and just makes no sense.​​
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  • biffsmackwellbiffsmackwell Posts: 4,739 Arc User
    Positive
    I don't think it harms anything, and could bring in cash for the game.

    They are working on new content, so maybe this is prep for making new late-to-end-game content.

    At the very least, it shows me that we have a team of people that are trying new thingsfor the game. New ways to monetize. New avenues for income. It's nice to see things that are new concepts for this game.
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  • biffsmackwellbiffsmackwell Posts: 4,739 Arc User
    Positive
    Oh, forgot to mention that the heirloom gear, I'm pretty sure, is bind on pickup, not bind to account.

    biffsig.jpg
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,387 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    I'd think that if you were going to go from six to thirty you'd want some great new content for someone getting back into the game or new zones to explore to go with it, but as is, someone who's never played this game before isn't going to feel they've gotten much out of the game if they pay to skip 24 levels. I'd guess it's only eight hours of gaming to get to level 30 and about another eight to make it to 40, but if there's no end game content or a new tutorial at that level at best all you're going to accomplish is getting a few inexperienced players into the level capped Alerts.
  • championshewolfchampionshewolf Posts: 4,375 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    That heirloom gear confuses me to. We already have heirloom gear in the game. And it scales to level. For all 6 slots. And the bonus, the heirloom gear we get in game has boosted XP gain. The heirloom gear from the store, doesn't.​​
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  • deadman20deadman20 Posts: 1,529 Arc User
    Positive
    Honestly, I think it's a nice option to have. Sure, I don't feel happy about letting everyone be able to skip to Lv30, they could add an amendum that states that you must already own a character at Lv30 or above or something... but after playing for so long and leveling all these different characters, it's nice to know that we do have an option to skip a portion of the grind now. I think the equipment should be renamed and tweaked though, something a bit different from Power-Up Heirloom and perhaps making it... I dunno, not what it is now? It just looks odd to me is all.​​
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  • cynicoolcynicool Posts: 160 Arc User
    chaelk wrote: »
    What raiding?

    These are the jokes, folks!

    Thinking about it further: I wouldn't pay for Heirloom gear I couldn't actually pass down to a new character.

    However, while I think the current item is pointless from a game practicality standpoint, I know people will spend money on it, which might go to the game, so that's good. And if this is a gear-up to producing higher level content, then it becomes less pointless. I really can't vote Positive or Negative, though, because it really doesn't seem like it's going to make a big splash either way.

    In the future it may be relevant. Right now it's just on PTS. And if it goes live it's just something else in the Z store I have no need for and hope other people will buy to keep the motor running.​​
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  • orangeitisorangeitis Posts: 227 Arc User
    I don't care. You can just pay to be lazy. Nothing P2W about it.

    But if you're having trouble with 30 so much that you need an item, have fun getting to 40.
  • nephtnepht Posts: 6,883 Arc User
    Positive
    Look if this becomes a z-store item on live what does it matter? If you don't like said item don't buy and use said item. I wont buy one but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be a thing.
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  • crypticbuxomcrypticbuxom Posts: 4,585 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    Why is it called heirloom gear if you can't use it on other characters? That's what heirloom is all about.

    Also I'm concerned about the price tag overall.

    As for setting up for things of the future, that doesn't work for Cryptic. How about bringing those new things and then introduce these kinds of items that gets you there? Besides, where does the money from this item get put into? They said that they don't make powers because there's no money earned from making them (ignoring freeform, character slots, archetypes and monthly subscriptions of course).

    So what does this item show that makes money and deserves more development? More character slots?
  • biffsmackwellbiffsmackwell Posts: 4,739 Arc User
    Positive
    I'm willing to bet that it's an oversight that it's still called Heirloom. They probably just didn't consider the reason for the naming, and just left it there because it's also a piece of gear that scales with your character. I doubt the name will stay the same.

    As for the price, I'd say less than ten bucks. Anything above that I probably wouldn't pay for.

    Setting up for future things doesn't work for Cryptic? Seems like an arbitrary statement.

    As far as the powers thing, you have that a little wrong. They don't make money when they're just given to the players for free. That's developer time spent for no return. The reason they put it into the lockboxes is because they're trying to justify the developer time. And don't be so narrow-minded. Just because they said they're monetizing powers to justify the developer time spent on them doesn't mean that that's the only way they're going to put money back into the game. The income from this item can go into any other aspect of the game. Heck, it could even go to making free powers. I'm guessing this is a relatively easy item to make, meaning not a whole lot of developer time needs to be spent on it, and if it sells, it'll make a nice return for Cryptic. That's why I see it as a positive thing.
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  • crypticbuxomcrypticbuxom Posts: 4,585 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    I'm going to use the simplest and biggest example that On Alert was to set up level cap increase.

    As for the money that this upgrade could bring in, I'm for it if it encourages getting the free gift xp system that Robobo wanted us to have.
  • stellariodragonstellariodragon Posts: 588 Arc User
    Positive
    I think it's more to capitalize on the Lifetimers who want to create a new character and try a new powersets in action without having to level it than for newbies.
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    it's using updated icons from the nemesis heirloom gear, so it probably doesn't have a final name yet.
    If those are the final icons and name, it has me worried about what they are going to do with the current heirloom gear.
    anyway, if people want to skip levels that's up to them.
    Some people just loath leveling, regardless of how easy it might be.
    No, they shouldn't have to get a character to 30 first.

    LTS;I usually have about 10-20 characters in transit at any time and currently I also have 14 spare slots on my main acct. So I'm actually ahead currently.(and just found out Crypticarkayne finally read the altaholics thread)

    would I use them. no.
    would others yes, that's their choice
    if it makes the game better for them, stick it in the shop.

    Just make sure;
    if it's listed as heirloom gear, it is bind to account AND looks different to the nemesis gear.
    If it's bind to character, DON'T list it as heirloom gear.
    ​​
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  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,387 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    I should add that I don't hate this item, but I do question it's value at this point.
  • themightyzeniththemightyzenith Posts: 4,599 Arc User
    guyhumual wrote: »
    I should add that I don't hate this item, but I do question it's value at this point.

    I suppose the value is that they have calculated that the money it could bring in is greater than the resources it took to make it. Otherwise, I doubt it would have been a thing.

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  • roughbearmattachroughbearmattach Posts: 4,784 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    ...because most folks really just want to skip West Side and start at level 15.
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  • roughbearmattachroughbearmattach Posts: 4,784 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    Bear's got it, there.

    Make it 500 zen or less and skip to 15, and watch the subbers rejoice.

    I would do this on every new toon I make, especially at 500Z.
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  • iamruneiamrune Posts: 965 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    I t doesn't make sense for a few reasons.

    As far as the Level booster, XP gifting would be much better, but if this is what they want to try, i'm cool with it as a concept. Execution needs a touch of work.

    I'd like to push for it to instead take a player to 35 rather than 30, which as many have noted here is basically nothing. Anyone can get an alt up to 30 in like two days of playing, no XP buffs required. I've also long held that the entire games path to 40 is entirely too short, and long advocated for the addition of the level cap lift to 50 as originally planned for so long ago. If it took as long to reach 50 from 40, as it took to get to 40 in the first place, this game would still be among the fastest-to-cap MMO games out there, not counting obviously pure action games like Marvel, and "leveling is actually just one long form tutorial" games like DC universe.

    35 is the level at which a second travel is gained, an Ultimate power may be chosen, most of the worst of the boring slog of early Monster island can be bypassed if desired, Lemuria is available to be done or skipped as player desires and Vibora bay is open to a player who wants to do it as well, it's basically where the "End Game areas" really open up to a player, and they have all the tools needed to access them and play at them effectively.

    It's also selected to be all those things, especially the travel power gained there, as the rough mid-point of the game when it was still planned to expand the leveling curve to 50.

    Obviously if you guys are still planning on a level cap lift, 35 would definitely be a better place to set the booster item too, but even if that's dust in the wind at this point, I feel most players would find more value out of the item if it was set to 35 for the above reasons.

    Oh and Heirloom gear that you can't pass around is less than useless, and renaming it won't make it any more useful without adding some other bonus effect to it. Should have something added to it in the form of secondary bonuses or drop it from the package altogether, IMHO. My recommendation is to include tokens that can be traded for a set of 3 Q gear primaries like the basic Armadillo primes, so a player could choose which bonus set they wanted, and get more with additional purchase if desired.
    ​​
  • guyhumualguyhumual Posts: 2,387 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    Hmm, maybe it's just me but I'd like to see Canada and the desert opened up again earlier, it used to be that you could go to Canada at level 6 and the desert at level 7 or 8, I don't really play those early missions in ether these days as I'm usually at least level 15 by the time I get there.

    On a side note, if this level up device is a prequel for a new level 30 hub, even a small one like the reduced map of Vibora Bay for the Queen City missions, I'd be pretty happy.
  • ashensnowashensnow Posts: 2,048 Arc User
    Can't honestly take the poll because it lacks a neutral response. Also, when two of the three response options are essentially negative the bias is pretty clear.

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  • crosschancrosschan Posts: 920 Arc User
    Negative
    So, this is the opinion portion of the show. No F-Words(FACTS) were harmed in the making of this post. ;)

    -Hate this idea.
    -Not shocked by it.
    -LvL Cap Increases are a dated and almost pointless MMO mechanic in the face of Alternate Advancement Systems...ESPECIALLY in a game which cannot supply the expansion to even remotely back such a thing. This will only serve to further trivialize already trivial content.
    -I giggle at the "It will let them make more money so they can...." argument because, uhm, look around. So they can what exactly?
    -At least this idea is more honest than that stupid vague XP gifting they danced around for a little bit.
    -So far, and I'm usually the objective one who is neither cheerleader or doomy but this is looking like...
    "Champions Online 2015: The Year ALL of The Bad Jokes Became Reality."
    ...and that kinda sucks to be honest. :/
    -I agree with Brou and Spar on this for the most part...except for any mentioning of LvL Cap Increases, of course.

    Unrelated:
    -Oh hey, LTS is on sale....WTB Reason to care...PLEASE.

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  • biffsmackwellbiffsmackwell Posts: 4,739 Arc User
    Positive
    I kinda doubt the money that this is gonna make is already earmarked to just disappear. What a gloomy Gus way to look at it.
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  • championshewolfchampionshewolf Posts: 4,375 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    crosschan wrote: »
    <snip>

    You make good points but your level cap increase for alternative leveling system seems flawed. All alternative leveling systems are is just level cap increases without calling them level cap increases. It does the same thing as increasing the level cap, adds more power to the character no ands, ifs or buts. Take a look at TSW and Marvel Heroes "alternative" leveling systems and that's all they are. Just adding more power. Even the Incarnate system in CoH was a new leveling system designed to increase the power of the character and it was even figured that 1 incarnate level was worth at least 5 regular levels in CoH, not the 1 it pretended to be.

    In short, just skip the pretenses and just make it what it is. Just raise the level cap, and let the leveling commence, and stop hiding it behind pretentious bull pucky pretending it's something else. Because if you add alternative leveling stuff you are still making a gate that people have to get through through said alternate path to get to the stuff it's meant for. Again see TSW, Incarnate system in CoH and Omega System in Marvel Heroes as basic examples.

    To put it another way, you are just trying to change the color of the goal posts. You're still moving them in the end as an alternative path still would mean new content would have to be created to conform to the new path. For an example of what happened when this was not done, see what happened when we got our talent system (feats or whatever they call them) in champions and they magnified player powers by at least 10 levels minimum.
    Post edited by championshewolf on
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  • biffsmackwellbiffsmackwell Posts: 4,739 Arc User
    Positive
    I'm in favor of alternate advancement instead of level cap increase. You don't have to worry about grinding up new gear, you don't have to rely on new zones and make the old ones deader than they already are. Level cap increase would make what little we have even more obsolete. I can't get with that.
    biffsig.jpg
  • meedacthunistmeedacthunist Posts: 2,961 Arc User1
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    There's no "Nuclear Double Facepalm For This Idea" option in this pool, so I can't vote.

    Oh, wait...

    "Makes no sense" will do...

    Here's a hint, Cryptic, because you exceed at not knowing your own game (but then, at this point nobody's really surprised by it):

    - up to 30 lvl is not the slowest.
    - 35 to 40 is what some people find the most grindy.
    - and even then you still have a chokepoint with Vibora Fail Apocalypse which needs to be unlocked on every single character to not play Lemuria on way to 40 (don't mind this one, I ignore Vibora Fail storyline since the location is slower to leveling than Lemuria anyway), so what about getting rid of this mandatory crisis requirement when you are speeding up people to 35?
    - Another choke point is Westside, but only to 15 lvl.
    - But I'm sure there will be enough less than smart people who'd pay for heirloom gear anyway.
    - Why so serious about speeding people to 40 when there's nothing there aside of rolling another alt? This is CO, it got no endgame anyway.


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  • championshewolfchampionshewolf Posts: 4,375 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    I'm in favor of alternate advancement instead of level cap increase. You don't have to worry about grinding up new gear, you don't have to rely on new zones and make the old ones deader than they already are. Level cap increase would make what little we have even more obsolete. I can't get with that.

    Uh, that's what alternate level paths would require. You just completely shot your reason for not wanting a level cap increase in the foot with a bazooka, as that's exactly what an alternate leveling path does. It increases the power of the characters, and continues to make the current content obsolete and trivial. And you still have to create alternate content to compensate for it, and yes, even gear. Because even if you don't change the base gear, you have to add alternate gear choices (again see Marvel Heroes, CoH and TSW) where they have added brand new items and gear choices in. It's not even a question they don't have to, because they will, and you still have just created more problems as the alternate leveling path will just make what is already trivial content even more trivial. You know, what exactly happened when they added that talent tree system when they said they were planning to up the level cap when they completely redid our gearing system back when On Alert was added.

    Again, you aren't changing the goal posts, you are just changing the paint color. In the end you are still moving the goal posts, so alternate leveling paths are just a level cap increase. No different.
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  • crypticbuxomcrypticbuxom Posts: 4,585 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    How will an alternate advancement system work without adding more to our builds? beyond what we have?
    ashensnow wrote: »
    Can't honestly take the poll because it lacks a neutral response. Also, when two of the three response options are essentially negative the bias is pretty clear.

    I think its more a positive than a negative thing yet I voted for Doesn't Make sense because I am neutral on it. Regardless, that's not a very good excuse to avoid stating your opinion.
    I kinda doubt the money that this is gonna make is already earmarked to just disappear. What a gloomy Gus way to look at it.

    Anything added to the game now is all about making money. Where do you suppose the money will go then since all decisions are being made off of monetary incentive now?
  • decorumfriendsdecorumfriends Posts: 2,802 Arc User
    Positive
    **shrugs** I'm not going to use it, but if it make them some cash, go for it. It's certainly nothing that could possibly affect me in a negative way (likely, not at all).
    'Dec out

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  • biffsmackwellbiffsmackwell Posts: 4,739 Arc User
    Positive
    I'm in favor of alternate advancement instead of level cap increase. You don't have to worry about grinding up new gear, you don't have to rely on new zones and make the old ones deader than they already are. Level cap increase would make what little we have even more obsolete. I can't get with that.

    Uh, that's what alternate level paths would require. You just completely shot your reason for not wanting a level cap increase in the foot with a bazooka, as that's exactly what an alternate leveling path does. It increases the power of the characters, and continues to make the current content obsolete and trivial. And you still have to create alternate content to compensate for it, and yes, even gear. Because even if you don't change the base gear, you have to add alternate gear choices (again see Marvel Heroes, CoH and TSW) where they have added brand new items and gear choices in. It's not even a question they don't have to, because they will, and you still have just created more problems as the alternate leveling path will just make what is already trivial content even more trivial. You know, what exactly happened when they added that talent tree system when they said they were planning to up the level cap when they completely redid our gearing system back when On Alert was added.

    Again, you aren't changing the goal posts, you are just changing the paint color. In the end you are still moving the goal posts, so alternate leveling paths are just a level cap increase. No different.

    Current end-game content, including lairs and rampages, can be used as part of the path of the alternate advancement. Your view of it is completely narrow-minded. Things that we already have that no one is using can be re-purposed. Content they are working on can be the stuff you do once you're powerful enough. Use some imagination, man. Hell, bring back difficulty settings to be used in conjunction with the alternate advancement to take on harder content for better rewards. It's still a treadmill, you can re-purpose existing content, all without changing the level number. Your lack of imagination in design is what's shooting itself in the foot.
    I kinda doubt the money that this is gonna make is already earmarked to just disappear. What a gloomy Gus way to look at it.

    Anything added to the game now is all about making money. Where do you suppose the money will go then since all decisions are being made off of monetary incentive now?

    Ugh, you're being so obtuse about this. You're upset because they said that they're putting powers in lockboxes so they can get some money back to justify the developer time spent making those powers. Just because one guy said that, you're blowing it out of proportion and now saying that every new thing added to the game is being put in to fund just that one thing. You do realize that this is the type of reason that developers are often put off of commenting on things like this on the forums? We have a guy trying to be honest with us, and you twist his words into "greed greed greed!" I mean, you literally said that since they put powers in lockboxes, that this level-to-thirty item's goal is to make more character slots. Just stop it.

    They're trying new things to make more money for the game. The money that those new things make can be used for new things for the game, not necessarily tethered to the thing that made that money. Stop making strawman arguments for the sake of making the new team look terrible.
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  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    Very unlikely I would buy one myself, but if someone else wants to, that's their business. As long as this doesn't mean current heirloom / vanguard gear is magically going to be BoP instead of BoA. That I would be irritated about. Outside of being pointless, I don't see any down side.

    Warcraft might be the only game that can afford to keep making throw away content. I'd rather see new content that scales to my character level / team size so that I can do it anytime or multiple times while leveling. More character levels aren't terribly interesting, but a difficult slider that works would be neat.
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  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    Meeda, I get from 29 to 40 on MI. with a stopoff at the yetis at 33. I've done Lemuria and VB about the same amount to level. Twice.
    The VB apocalypse I actually found better than the zone.
    Stuffing up Freeform builds since Mid 2011
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  • crypticbuxomcrypticbuxom Posts: 4,585 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    You're upset because they said that they're putting powers in lockboxes so they can get some money back to justify the developer time spent making those powers.

    Yes I am upset that they up and admitted that they need to do that to justify the dev time to make powers. As if subs and freeform and archetype money isn't going back in to paying for dev time to make more powers and archetypes. That money does disappear into a sink hole from what we've seen, otherwise we'd have more powers since the laser sword set.

    So unless they say otherwise, I'm taking what they say at face value and criticizing them for it.
  • biffsmackwellbiffsmackwell Posts: 4,739 Arc User
    Positive
    We both know this game isn't a cash cow. And from what we've been told, "it does good enough to keep itself going." Keeping itself going has been what we've gotten since Cryptic North took over. The powers we got during that time were generously worked on by someone who was doing it on their free time.

    It's pretty clear to me that they want to do more, but people don't like to work for free. Items like this will help fund more development, if they end up selling well. That's why I'm all for it.

    We don't know exactly how much money the game makes, we don't know how all the money it makes is spent. Until we know these things, saying that the money disappears into a sinkhole is speculation, at best.
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  • xydaxydaxydaxyda Posts: 817 Arc User
    Well, this will effect me in no way what so ever. If people want to buy this item that is their business. If it is already on the PTS that means that the work to make it happen has already been done. Having more stuff for people to buy isn't a bad thing, so really I don't see what all the negativity is about.

    Just because you're not interested in buying it, doesn't mean you gotta boycott it.
  • iamruneiamrune Posts: 965 Arc User
    edited August 2015
    This doesn't make sense, because...
    Actually Biff, this much is absolutely known;

    That Champions Online was called "Very successful, beyond expectations" upon release, and it clearly made Cryptic [and Atari at the time] a lot of money, enough to fund STO and then preliminary work on Neverwinter.

    It sucks that Atari put out all those prepaid time cards into the market before selling Cryptic, cutting Champions income throat, metaphorically, but that's ultimately not our problem. PWE and Cryptic had to honor those prepaid cards, even though the income for them was all taken by Atari before they sold. Jerks.

    I think it's easy for anyone to tell that most of the income Champions earned actually ended up going into the engine enhancements needed to make STO gorgeous, and the attempt to "merge the code branches" created the disastrous Kitchen Sink Patch and I don't know if it was ever properly attempted again. As a result of this, basically most of the income CHampions earned actually wen to fund the development of the OTHER games Cryptic made.

    And I think we're ALL still waiting for Cryptic to send a larger, more significant part of that development back our way. It's only fair, we paid for their development, now their [STO and NVW] success can pay for our development for a year.

    of course people don't want to work for free. But the perception of a long time subber like me [I've subbed almost six full years now, and never lapsed] is that we have funded the game, same as any other MMO, and we expect development the same as any other MMO subscriber does, but holy cow, Neverwinter is free to play and it's not only three times larger out of the gate new as Champions is now, AND it's had five major content and end game expansions, constant rebalancing and revision, and basically all the tech advancements we should have had and that we paid for, and we don't have any of it.

    And we funded it. People working on Champions won't be "Working for free", it was paid for with our subscriber money years ago.

    It's completely unfair and that's what drives this sense of frustration. STO wouldn't have even come out at all, if Champions hadn't come out so successfully [even if it did immediately fumble, post launch]. Neverwinter would certainly not have come along so well if not for us as well, probably still be the "Not-MMO, Co-op Action adventure game" ala Borderlands they were aiming for when Atari was still around.
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