It seems like the grind is for the hardcore players. Those are the people you will never be able to please. Other companies already fail at this. Look at WoW. They spend a year or more making an expansion only to have their hardcore players blow through it in a few days. Sub numbers tank after one or two months. Gear grinds aren't doing anything good for WoW or even Rift. The biggest difference is that those games have a lot farther to fall with much larger player populations.
Rift especially since I see a lot of the same stuff happening here. First zones are pretty dead when a year or so ago had a lot more people during the same events. (Level capped characters can level down to participate in low level zone events and still gain rewards for their actual level.) They also sell gear in the cash shop, have questionable lockboxes, and other power buying buffs. Not doing them any favors. Why would Cryptic choose to emulate that of all the things they could be doing?
When Diablo 3 launched, getting gear for your character was awful and made worse by forcing people into the real money AH just to gear their toon. Loot 2.0 made gearing your character so much easier by playing the game. Hell, now you can get a full set of level cap gear just by doing a series of season challenges. They aren't even all that difficult and most of them are done by playing the game normally. The hardcore players are given different challenges that don't negatively impact the more casual players.
Path of Exile saw people playing Perandus league longer than normal with it's generous gear drops making alt creating much easier. Instead of people just pushing up a character or two and stopping, the easier access to gear encouraged them to make more characters. More people were playing between content updates because one of the most boring / irritating aspects of rolling alts is made easier. Making new builds was exciting, which is something that should be similar in CO since both games have vast build options.
Another big difference that doesn't help: WoW and Rift are themepark games just like CO. Adding a gear grind is not helping them gain customers. Repeating content over and over again that never changes makes grinding for gear even worse than just high prices. It's why I say the content isn't fun enough for a long gear grind.
It seems like the grind is for the hardcore players. Those are the people you will never be able to please. Other companies already fail at this. Look at WoW. They spend a year or more making an expansion only to have their hardcore players blow through it in a few days. Sub numbers tank after one or two months. Gear grinds aren't doing anything good for WoW
As a 10+ year wow player, allow me to chime in on this.
Originally, gear in wow was pretty grindy. For some, raid bosses (cosmics/teleious/etc) would always drop X number of gear pieces, which you'd have to hope were 1) something your character could actually use (only one try per week!) and 2) that you were lucky enough to win the loot roll. Other gear (for the longest time, this was pvp gear) was made available by grinding a slow-to-acquire currency. It sucked unless you were either really lucky or really into grinding.
Then, at some point, they realized that their playerbase was more than tryhard grinders and realized they had to please them, too. In the current expansion and the last one, there's been several catch-up methods implemented. Where in CO, I have to spend weeks grinding for Heroic trash gear, in wow, equivalent gear was available just by doing content in zones like Tanaan Jungle--you could get several pieces in a single day and gear up quickly. Casual players could "call it good" and still have a decent character, while hardcore players could have their alts springboard into endgame raid content without wasting too much time grinding mediocre rewards, only to turn around and grind hardcore endgame rewards.
Now, as the final weeks of wow's current expansion unfold, they are literally throwing decent-level gear at players. Something like 2-4 pieces per invasion event site cleared--a process that only takes about 15 minutes, with 2 available per character every hour. I'm not saying CO needs to yield rewards at that kind of rate (it doesn't) but understanding the purpose is important. In this case, it's to help get players who may be still behind gearwise caught up to see the endgame content in one final push.
So in short, while wow was grindy at some point, and still can be, it's nowhere near as bad as CO in its current state. Not even close, actually. See, the developers long ago realized that casual players play their game too, and while players should still have to work hard toward earning the best gear, it's okay to throw said casuals a bone as well.
- - -
Now in general, people play video games to feel good about what they're doing. That's the whole purpose of a video game--to entertain. If a game no longer makes them feel good, players will eventually pack up, leave, and probably find a new game that does. Some may stay, either out of some illusion of investment or because they're stuck in a habitual rut, but ultimately, people move on. CO isn't special in this regard.
If there's one thing the modern Asian pay-to-win MMOs have figured out, it's that rewarding players is important. It makes them feel good about what they're doing, even if they're trying to scale an absurd paywall in the process.
Oops, it would seem I'm rambling now..
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
It seems like the grind is for the hardcore players. Those are the people you will never be able to please.
Except us supposed hardcore players aren't the ones constantly complaining about everything... so, if anything we seem quite pleased. On the other hand, the supposed casual players... well, they don't act so casual.
I wonder if we will see double GCR/SCR weekends? We certainly don't need double XP weekends if the incentive to use multiple alts for high end content is being removed.
We don't even get enough double xp weekends.
Now, a true question...what exactly do people mean by "Alt-Friendly"?
Do they mean, play on toons other than the alt to gear them up so that way they won't play them for the content they geared them up for thus making it difficult to get cosmics going?
Or do they mean how the game rewards us with stuff that our alts can use, like costumes, powers, most vehicles, most devices, etc.?
When it comes to being alt friendly, this game is perhaps one of the most alt-friendly game I've ever played. Vast majority of MMOs out there do not let you gear up alts using your mains, nor do they have shareable resources. Note that there are exceptions, such as Marvel Heroes 2016, which does have shared resources. The real problem is that it takes to long to gear up toons due to the hideous grind. If the devs made things cheaper or rewarded more GCR/SCR than they do currently, the grind would be more bearable. Of course they could make it more fun with less one-shotting mechanics, less punishing mechancis, and more rewarding mechanics in fights.
And that would be relevant if dev actions weren't forcing the casuals out of their 'area' and in some cases moving to strip their content away.
Still waiting for objective rebuttal - or concession.
You'll never get either one. Spinny likes being punished in-game. Everything you cite as an issue, he sees as a feature.
"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!"
Personally, I think the CO team needs to take a big, in-depth look next door, at STO's progression system. It's not tiered in the same way CO's is trying (horribly) to be, but instead, it's flat. Every new reputation brings with it a new set of gear, with new set bonuses that do new and different things. And yet, people still work toward it anyway because the content is new, they get to take their existing geared characters out to play in this new content. They can earn things with it, including a new set of gear with different bonuses which may (or may not) synergize better with their current setup.
Throw in some costumes, action figures, and auras and that's even more incentive to run the content on an old, geared up favorite. (Just don't make the auras character-bound!)
I've said similar things before. STO gear and character progression are top notch. When I play STO it's exciting to get mission drops. Most of the gear that drops in STO (by actually playing the game) is useful. Yes there's purchasable gear that you can grind for-- but you can get by on random drops.
What I fear is happening in CO is that grinding for gear is becoming the focus. Regular missions don't drop anything of use. While all the good stuff comes from running end-game mini-raids. The new zone is a little bit better in this regard, but there's still a vast range of content that drops horribly outdated & useless gear.
Now it's even more expensive and difficult to get Q-gear or other leveling gear. What's happening is a myopic view of the game post-40. While no thought has been given to gearing and leveling pre-40. We need some attention in this area, especially if questionite gear is going to rise in price.
- Improve gear drops from standard missions. - Streamline the pre-40 mission chains. - Make contact granted mission content repeatable (like it is in STO).
There has to be more to the game than just grinding post 40 content for Justice Gear.
Recognition (Gold, Silver, Unity, Event, etc) will not be made sharable under any circumstance. We have limits on how much you can earn recognition from doing specific tasks for a reason and we do not want players bypassing this.
Prices for many items were set far too low in the past and we've been going through and making adjustments. While we understand this can cause frustration, please know that it's being done to keep incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state.
Justice gear is high-end gear that's intended to be difficult to acquire. Its previous pricing didn't reflect that accurately due to the token droprate being entirely random, being account shareable and the Rampages not meeting the difficulty level we want to warrant rewarding that type of gear.
Now that we have a few areas where players can earn Gold Champion Recognition we felt it was time to start shifting Justice gear to that pricing model.
At some point we would like to completely remove the Rampage token cost from Justice gear in favor of a pure GCR/SCR cost, but that will be reserved for when we're able to dedicate some time to reviewing rampages. We have no ETA for that.
These absurd prices are only giving me incentive to not bother.
Making rampages harder will only further alienate your player base. We all know what Cryptic's idea of difficult content is by now, more abilities that one shot anyone not minmaxed. They don't need to be made harder, they need to be made more interesting. Right now LI and SC are mindnumbingly boring and unnecessarily long.
This is because Cryptic doesn't know what they are doing anymore. Its decisions like this that drive players away. They are completely clueless on what brings players back. You think that they would learn from their poor decisions and realize how little they know about balance and time spent for gain.
Everything worthwhile getting in the game from loot assigned to specific mobs are gone. Now you have to grind your **** off in end game for gear just to play that very same end game. Rampages were meant to have us acquire this special gear and then use that to play end game content efficiently like Warzones.
Cryptic. You have it **** backwards.
You should let us farm all content with all the characters we want without limitations so we can choose which characters gets the rewards for each bit of content. Having more characters is rewarded by letting us grind everything faster. You should take advice from the original devs for this game before you proceed.
Why do we even have this feedback thread if devs are dead set on making Justice Gear another piece of content that is anti- player retention?
I want to know how determine "difficulty" in obtaining items that cost some sort of currency, is it hours played? is it days played?
to get one OV secondary (best in game) requires 5000 VT you can get slightly over 300 each day with 500 every 5th day if you do "Playing both sides", It will take 13 days at ~ 20 min a day to acquire. or 4.5 hours per piece
The non wrath secondary gear (second, third best?) from the GCR Vendor requires 100 GCR & 200 SCR if you are lucky you can get 28 GCR in one day if you manage to get your daily done, usually takes closer to 3 days because of timing, not having the right roles to fill, etc.
on average it takes about an hour to do one cosmic, occasionally less, usually more, and sometimes with no reward. it takes 15 runs (not counting daily) to get 105 GCR and 150 SCR, which means you will have to also have to do more cosmics, rampages & or alerts to make up the difference. so on average it takes one hour per run x 15 runs = 15 hours PLUS an additional 50 SCR which would take another couple hours. so the second best secondary gear in the game will take ~17 hours per piece, but possibly less days
to get one OV secondary (best in game) requires 5000 VT
you can get slightly over 300 each day with 500 every 5th day if you do "Playing both sides", It will take 13 days at ~ 20 min a day to acquire. or 4.5 hours per piece
Recognition (Gold, Silver, Unity, Event, etc) will not be made sharable under any circumstance.
Prices for many items were set far too low in the past and we've been going through and making adjustments. While we understand this can cause frustration, please know that it's being done to keep incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state.
Let me try to decrypt what's going on, and someone please tell me if I'm wrong:
- They're really doubling down on this alt-hostile, anti-casual, anti-player grindfest. - They're eliminating account-bound items to attempt to force casual players into grinding several times. - They're bottle-necking Recognition rewards to limit how much you can hoard, to keep you always in need, always grinding again. - They're locking Recognition to each character to counter casual play on several alts and avoid people spreading their efforts across a variety of characters -- directly counter to how people want to enjoy the game. - They're raising prices more to demand even more time from people.
This aggressive manipulation does not make me want to spend hours grinding and grinding. It kills all interest I once had in the game. It makes me avoid it like the plague, and I know I'm not alone here. How does driving casual players away keep the game in a healthy state?
^ To play devil's advocate, I think I know what they're trying to do: Given what little development resources they have, they want to stretch the content that already exists as well as what they can produce so that it lasts as long as possible and remains evergreen. Something players can't just consume and be done with forever. The problem is that there's a line between "long-lasting, renewable content" and "excruciating, off-putting grindfests" I do hope they realize this and at least try to meet everyone halfway.
This is a game I really want to like, and I wouldn't be so vocal on the forums if I didn't care. Come on devs, help me out here.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
and thats the thing, the content isn't so good, but the rewards were decent. now the rewards are being made harder to get without improving content. .. that's not the way to retain players (or get new ones, which is really needed)
I don't think stretching out content is necessary for a game like this. This game is an alt driven game in my opinion, so players are never really bored as the journey (eg freeform) is the fun off the game not the final destination (eg endgame).
Endgame rewards like justice is a good idea for players that want to improve their 'main". But don't take away the fun from us that like building alts from scratch either!
Thanks for all the responses thus far and try to keep it civil!
^ To play devil's advocate, I think I know what they're trying to do: Given what little development resources they have, they want to stretch the content that already exists as well as what they can produce so that it lasts as long as possible and remains evergreen. Something players can't just consume and be done with forever. The problem is that there's a line between "long-lasting, renewable content" and "excruciating, off-putting grindfests" I do hope they realize this and at least try to meet everyone halfway.
This is a game I really want to like, and I wouldn't be so vocal on the forums if I didn't care. Come on devs, help me out here.
I think this is where most of the posts are coming from. This is a wonderful game and it's seen a MASSIVE deal of positive improvement over the last year. We are passionate about it and when something seems inconsistent or counter-intuitive to things that previously seemed to be working well, we want to voice our concerns: To me, there's a difference between a price adjustment and something suddenly costing multiple times its previous pricing and/or having its function drastically altered without the price being changed to compensate (heirloom gear going from BoA to BoE).
As the top tier gear, I absolutely understand that Justice needs revised pricing commensurate with its status but many here feel this change would be more appropriate when the Rampage requirements are properly addressed (i.e. RNG is a harsh mistress), whether it be Rampages supplemented by a weekly mission, drop tables are reviewed/expanded, tokens are reviewed, etc.
I have most of the stuff I want already unlocked, so my issues with pricing changes on gear (and the previously implemented legacy costume price changes) aren't motivated by self interest, but rather from the perspective of what new or casual players' reaction will be when they realize the time commitment they're in for on certain things. If the goal is to trigger more real spending in a Free-to-Play game (which I understand is crucial to CO's continued functioning), I feel like there should be some compromise between the silk glove (too cheap) and the iron gauntlet (current pricing) when players do their own internal cost/benefit analysis of whatever digital good they are coveting.
I keep wondering if they greatly slow down the leveling and gearing of alts will players have less incentive to put money into the game? E.g. since they took away the free teleport to MC device we used to get at lvl 25 players have to buy them with real money (or farm Q to buy one from someone who is selling those he/she bought). However, if it takes a lot longer to gear up a lvl 40 players may not lvl up as many as before and not have a need for buying these devices. If they change JG to gcr they may lose income because people won't need drifter salvage to buy it anymore. I hope they are thinking very carefully about all the ramifications of these potential changes.
Personally I'd rather have the end game be less grindy, but require a bit of actual money to be spent. I never felt bad shelling out for the 30 drifter salvage a set of JG costs.
I think it's highly likely that those who are "okay" with the current changes and frankly insane prices already have a number of their characters geared up with end game gear...and may not have many alts which they use often.
I do think that with these changes (to pricing), it sucks the fun out of CO, which is the last thing it needs.
I'm still gearing characters up, and I've even started leveling up new ones I plan to get GCR gear for. I only ever got one character Justice Gear tho cause those RNG tokens are stupid, glad the long term plan is to get rid of them.
I think it's highly likely that those who are "okay" with the current changes and frankly insane prices already have a number of their characters geared up with end game gear...and may not have many alts which they use often.
The new prices for Justice gear are comparable to slightly easier than the prices for Distinguished gear. There are people out there with full sets of Distinguished.
Recognition (Gold, Silver, Unity, Event, etc) will not be made sharable under any circumstance. We have limits on how much you can earn recognition from doing specific tasks for a reason and we do not want players bypassing this.
Prices for many items were set far too low in the past and we've been going through and making adjustments. While we understand this can cause frustration, please know that it's being done to keep incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state.
Justice gear is high-end gear that's intended to be difficult to acquire. Its previous pricing didn't reflect that accurately due to the token droprate being entirely random, being account shareable and the Rampages not meeting the difficulty level we want to warrant rewarding that type of gear.
Now that we have a few areas where players can earn Gold Champion Recognition we felt it was time to start shifting Justice gear to that pricing model.
At some point we would like to completely remove the Rampage token cost from Justice gear in favor of a pure GCR/SCR cost, but that will be reserved for when we're able to dedicate some time to reviewing rampages. We have no ETA for that.
Hmm... it seems to me that it would be best to wait until you guys decide on when to move forward with the final cost of Justice Gear and giving the rampages a pass through. I currently avoid rampages because they are not worth playing; the RNG is TOO random and the gear you really need to survive through them is not worth grinding for. Therefore, there is no reason for me to even think about acquiring Justice Gear.
Of course getting end-game gear should be hard, but there should also be many ways of grinding the resources to get that gear, not just *a few*. Players should feel excited about being able to acquire end-game gear, not frustrated and doubtful.
At some point we would like to completely remove the Rampage token cost from Justice gear in favor of a pure GCR/SCR cost, but that will be reserved for when we're able to dedicate some time to reviewing rampages. We have no ETA for that.
Hmm, I thought as much.
With that in mind... it may be an idea to hold off on Justice Gear price revisions until Rampages are up for revision.
Because you'll likely run into a similar problem when it comes to revising Rampages, people have been collecting tokens and suddenly they become worthless (and knowing our luck would likely only be traded for a measly SCR/GCR amount or tons of UNTIL recog )
^ Just saying this again, because I would really like to see the Justice Gear changes held off on until Rampage system is revised. Only makes sense to revise rewards from content when revising actual content.
^ Just saying this again, because I would really like to see the Justice Gear changes held off on until Rampage system is revised. Only makes sense to revise rewards from content when revising actual content.
Not true. If anything they are being very lax in waiting this long to add the proper requirements for justice gear. They would have been perfectly justified by adding a GCR cost to the gear the moment GCR became a thing; in fact that may have been the better move to more immediately make it clear what the connection between intended challenge and gear rewards is. Instead, they decided that until they had a few more sources of those tokens they would allow people to continue to get away with getting the gear without facing the intended challenges. Unfortunately this then became another case of people getting used to a false precedent. It's good that this is coming to an end now because it will allow people to start getting used to how things are going to be rather than holding on to the handout paradigm of the past. The very fact that the rampages have not been overhauled is part of the reason that they cannot be the sole requirement for justice gear; had they been overhauled to be appropriately challenging then they could. This is not a case of "you can change the cost to make it so we have to do other things to get justice gear after you overhaul the rampages", rather it is a case of "you can once again make it possible to acquire Justice Gear through rampages alone after they have been overhauled".
I think a good move would be to make a second set of Justice Gear available in the GCR vendor that has the same cost as Distinguished gear, with no token requirements. That way people who have tokens can still use them, but people who want to avoid Rampages entirely have that option as well. Then throw in the ability to convert tokens to GCR/SCR to effectively make up the difference between the two sets for people who have some tokens, but not enough, who would like to abandon Rampages right now. However, I think part of the reason they didn't do something like that is because they don't want Rampages to be completely abandoned overnight, as I imagine they would be since there don't appear to be very many people who would actually 'enjoy' rampages.
And what about the people who want to avoid the GCR grind content? If the people who want to avoid Rampages get to and still earn full rewards... fair's only fair.
Unfortunately, most MMO's do not work that way; they tend to kneecap players if they dont participate in content that rewards players with end game loot/gear. I think CO is slowly heading in that direction; I dont think the devs will fully implement such strategy but dont be surprised if they use some of it.
If players want to avoid doing GCR content, that is their choice. However, that does not mean that the devs have to give easy access/any access to get those rewards/gear if you don't do them. I dont do Rampages, so I dont expect to have access to Justice Gear because the needed tokens only drop in Rampages. As you have pointed out, "Fair's only fair."
Besides, you do not necessarily need Justice Gear to do the Q-Warzone as others before me have said. I agree with this because I have tried it with Mercenary and Legion gear. Mercenary and Vigilante gear are getting price drops in the Q-store. There are other top/end level gear that you can acquire without doing GCR content. This is where creativity comes in. It will be a welcome challenge, in my opinion, to create new toons that are built to handle the Q-Warzone.
The new prices for Justice gear are comparable to slightly easier than the prices for Distinguished gear. There are people out there with full sets of Distinguished.
If players want to avoid doing GCR content, that is their choice. However, that does not mean that the devs have to give easy access/any access to get those rewards/gear if you don't do them. I dont do Rampages, so I dont expect to have access to Justice Gear because the needed tokens only drop in Rampages. As you have pointed out, "Fair's only fair."
And what about the players that can't do GCR content due to it requiring other players which are not readily available due to timezone differences, leaving them with the choice between staying up until ungodly o'clock or not doing the content.
In all things, a calm heart must prevail.
Member of Paragon Dawn: Because some people like friendly helpful communities.
Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
I must have missed the massive uproar over how Justice gear was far too easy and cheap to acquire that occurred shortly after being introduced. And the massive uproar over how rampages were easy peasy content.
If players want to avoid doing GCR content, that is their choice. However, that does not mean that the devs have to give easy access/any access to get those rewards/gear if you don't do them. I dont do Rampages, so I dont expect to have access to Justice Gear because the needed tokens only drop in Rampages. As you have pointed out, "Fair's only fair."
And what about the players that can't do GCR content due to it requiring other players which are not readily available due to timezone differences, leaving them with the choice between staying up until ungodly o'clock or not doing the content.
I currently have that issue with the Cosmics; it is difficult for me to do the Cosmic Monster Event because of timezone differences. Difficult, but not impossible. It has become a slow grind to get GCR for me because I can only catch a Cosmic group a few times a week. I still try to do them because I like the challenge and I am usually rewarded for my efforts (unlike Rampages).
Perhaps it is time to start a thread in the main forums about this issue. If the Cosmic Event had a reset timer of 2 hours (as it did at launch) more players would be able to participate and obtain GCR at a better pace.
What ever happened to being able to farm for gear for an alt, then when that alt was ready they equip it and you can have fun with a fully powered character? Bye bye end game entry Heroics.
What ever happened to farming for materials/money on many different characters then purchase/craft items and give them straight away to the character they were meant to be put on? Bye bye account wide resources.
They might as well convert costume change costs from Resources to a new currency that isn't tradable.
I currently have that issue with the Cosmics; it is difficult for me to do the Cosmic Monster Event because of timezone differences. Difficult, but not impossible. It has become a slow grind to get GCR for me because I can only catch a Cosmic group a few times a week. I still try to do them because I like the challenge and I am usually rewarded for my efforts (unlike Rampages).
Perhaps it is time to start a thread in the main forums about this issue. If the Cosmic Event had a reset timer of 2 hours (as it did at launch) more players would be able to participate and obtain GCR at a better pace.
That wouldn't help as much as you think it would, the main issue isn't having the cosmics around to do them, it's having the players about to do them... for example, on my days off I can hop on CO at about 11am and it'll take all the way until about 9pm before there is enough people to even attempt tackling the cosmics.. and even then it is more often than not a hard struggel to get them done.
Instead, give us a way to earn GCR that does not require a large group of people of a overly specialized team [main reason it takes roughly 2 hours to get a TA team together in my timezone is healers are virtually non exsistant, and the players avaiable are barely capable of TA]. so basically something like TA, with a lesser amount of gcr and scr rewarded, but also providing a lesser challange.
In all things, a calm heart must prevail.
Member of Paragon Dawn: Because some people like friendly helpful communities.
Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
to make cosmics fun again they could roll them back a few updates, but then to counter them being easier, the could cut the reward back. spent 2 hours over the last two days (mon night, tues morning) on the dino (probably the same one)... right now the cosmics are boring, tedious, and not fun
Prices for many items were set far too low in the past and we've been going through and making adjustments. While we understand this can cause frustration, please know that it's being done to keep incentives, progression and the overall game in a healthy state.
My reply to this is that setting gear further and further out of reach for people who are not playing the game 24/7 actually decreases the incentive to play. Most people, when they hit a wall, don't keep slamming into the wall but instead avoid it or go around.
I would suggest that this is being done a bit backwards. Until you have time to review and adjust the challenge and reward of the end game content, arbitrarily increasing the time that it takes to get the gear to successfully complete that content is inadvisable.
I also have a question for you - what in your opinion is the intended, reasonable amount of game time for an average player to invest to get one piece of Justice gear?
I would also ask what the purpose of asking for feedback was, if when 90% of the feedback is negative there is no change or adjustment?
if justice is currently so easy to get, how come, after 2 years, i finally have my second piece?
Indeed - after a year, I almost have my first (right before these changes will put it out of reach again). I feel like I already probably play this game too much. I'm trying to understand how much time the folks who have multiple sets are putting in and what the devs consider "reasonable".
to make cosmics fun again they could roll them back a few updates, but then to counter them being easier, the could cut the reward back. spent 2 hours over the last two days (mon night, tues morning) on the dino (probably the same one)... right now the cosmics are boring, tedious, and not fun
Agreed on especially the dino, but IMHO if the cosmics are the intended way to get GCR they need another revisit. Would be better to balance them for a smaller team to make them more accessible for the average player.
I currently have that issue with the Cosmics; it is difficult for me to do the Cosmic Monster Event because of timezone differences. Difficult, but not impossible. It has become a slow grind to get GCR for me because I can only catch a Cosmic group a few times a week. I still try to do them because I like the challenge and I am usually rewarded for my efforts (unlike Rampages).
Perhaps it is time to start a thread in the main forums about this issue. If the Cosmic Event had a reset timer of 2 hours (as it did at launch) more players would be able to participate and obtain GCR at a better pace.
That wouldn't help as much as you think it would, the main issue isn't having the cosmics around to do them, it's having the players about to do them... for example, on my days off I can hop on CO at about 11am and it'll take all the way until about 9pm before there is enough people to even attempt tackling the cosmics.. and even then it is more often than not a hard struggel to get them done.
Instead, give us a way to earn GCR that does not require a large group of people of a overly specialized team [main reason it takes roughly 2 hours to get a TA team together in my timezone is healers are virtually non exsistant, and the players avaiable are barely capable of TA]. so basically something like TA, with a lesser amount of gcr and scr rewarded, but also providing a lesser challange.
Hmm.. I do not disagree that getting *capable* players together to do Cosmic Events is just as hard (if not harder) than finding the time to do them. I just think that if the reset timer for the Cosmic Event was shorter, players would be able to do them more, getting in more playtime to learn their mechanics; most of the GCR that I have earned so far came from the first week of launch. You would think that Rampages (for example) would be good experiences to segway players into handling more difficult content such as the Cosmic Events, but alas, that is not so.
I have repeatedly suggested that GCR should be rewarded in other content that is already available such as Unity missions (since your toon needs to be level 40 to do them), Rampages and Adventure Packs/Comic Series for level 40 toons. So far I have seen no response from the devs.
For example, Unity missions could grant a 3 GCR's after the final mission for the day with diminishing returns after 5 runs a day (they can be stacked in the mission journal each day if not finished) and Adventure Packs/Comic Series could grant 3GCR's for finishing them (since you can do 4 a day of each) and stop granting them after 8 runs for level 40 toons. Rampages could grant between 3 to 5 GCR for each run with diminishing/no returns after 5 runs for level 40 toons (this will make more sense once the token requirement is removed for Justice Gear).
to make cosmics fun again they could roll them back a few updates, but then to counter them being easier, the could cut the reward back. spent 2 hours over the last two days (mon night, tues morning) on the dino (probably the same one)... right now the cosmics are boring, tedious, and not fun
The problem with the dino is that it's the only cosmic where the average power/skill of the characters matters much. There are a small number of key players for each Cosmic: Kigatilik: Key Players: dog tank, main tank, main tank healer, dps healer, and a couple of people to focus down ice tombs; a backup tank is good to have but not essential. Everyone Else: if you can avoid dying, avoid disrupting dog control, avoid stealing aggro, and not kill people with hidden tombs, you're golden. Qwyjibo: Key Players: heart CCers (typically you want either two, or one and a secondary cc/healer), main tanks, main tank healers. Everyone Else: if you can figure out not shooting the hearts, you're good. Teleiosaurus: Key Players: main tanks, baby tank, main tank healers, baby tank healer. Everyone Else: Can you manage an average of 2,000 dps for 5s against a target with fairly high damage resistance, while possibly being disrupted by the baby's AoEs.
to make cosmics fun again they could roll them back a few updates, but then to counter them being easier, the could cut the reward back. spent 2 hours over the last two days (mon night, tues morning) on the dino (probably the same one)... right now the cosmics are boring, tedious, and not fun
The problem with the dino is that it's the only cosmic where the average power/skill of the characters matters much. There are a small number of key players for each Cosmic: Kigatilik: Key Players: dog tank, main tank, main tank healer, dps healer, and a couple of people to focus down ice tombs; a backup tank is good to have but not essential. Everyone Else: if you can avoid dying, avoid disrupting dog control, avoid stealing aggro, and not kill people with hidden tombs, you're golden. Qwyjibo: Key Players: heart CCers (typically you want either two, or one and a secondary cc/healer), main tanks, main tank healers. Everyone Else: if you can figure out not shooting the hearts, you're good. Teleiosaurus: Key Players: main tanks, baby tank, main tank healers, baby tank healer. Everyone Else: Can you manage an average of 2,000 dps for 5s against a target with fairly high damage resistance, while possibly being disrupted by the baby's AoEs.
One of these things is not like the others.
Hmm... they all seem the same to me; specific toons with specific roles are needed for each one. There are only a handful of players that have the ability to either play or switch main toons or main roles to accomodate each Cosmic Monster. It is not often that I find Cosmic Event groups that are ready to go within a half an hour; usually the group is waiting on said tanks/healers/CCer's(for Qwyjibo).
One of the main problems not mentioned that I find with the Cosmics is the timing of the DPS attacks. When to start attacking, when to stop, when to know that the tanks have a firm grip on their aggro against that Cosmic. Personally, I find that if I play DPS it is good to wait until the health bar of the Cosmic Monster reaches 10 million; it is around there that the tanks seem to have aggro under control. Referring back to the dino, this should be done twice; once at initial aggro, again after the baby shows up. If I wait untill 10 million hp to start DPS attacking after the baby shows up, I can usually pick up the baby AOE attack pattern and act accordingly.
I guess I will keep saying this; The Leaderboad should be removed, especially from the Cosmic Events. If it was not there, more attention could be spent on defeating the Cosmic Monster instead of where your name might be placed on the leaderboard. The Cosmic Events are supposed to be a team effort, not a *I did better than you* effort.
So true, but the waiting around for just the right combo of key characters to show up can often make these "fights" drag out for a long time. Of course, the waiting is dull, dull, dull. Now, the obvious/ideal answer is for lots of people to create these key characters to share the burden and speed up start time. This has 2 problems. First, is that most players probably don't want to play those types of a character (e.g. I've heard a fair number of people say they hate tanking or healing). CO's catch phrase has been about playing the hero you want to be, after all. Second, even if someone created such a character they may not be any good at it.
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Rift especially since I see a lot of the same stuff happening here. First zones are pretty dead when a year or so ago had a lot more people during the same events. (Level capped characters can level down to participate in low level zone events and still gain rewards for their actual level.) They also sell gear in the cash shop, have questionable lockboxes, and other power buying buffs. Not doing them any favors. Why would Cryptic choose to emulate that of all the things they could be doing?
When Diablo 3 launched, getting gear for your character was awful and made worse by forcing people into the real money AH just to gear their toon. Loot 2.0 made gearing your character so much easier by playing the game. Hell, now you can get a full set of level cap gear just by doing a series of season challenges. They aren't even all that difficult and most of them are done by playing the game normally. The hardcore players are given different challenges that don't negatively impact the more casual players.
Path of Exile saw people playing Perandus league longer than normal with it's generous gear drops making alt creating much easier. Instead of people just pushing up a character or two and stopping, the easier access to gear encouraged them to make more characters. More people were playing between content updates because one of the most boring / irritating aspects of rolling alts is made easier. Making new builds was exciting, which is something that should be similar in CO since both games have vast build options.
Another big difference that doesn't help: WoW and Rift are themepark games just like CO. Adding a gear grind is not helping them gain customers. Repeating content over and over again that never changes makes grinding for gear even worse than just high prices. It's why I say the content isn't fun enough for a long gear grind.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Originally, gear in wow was pretty grindy. For some, raid bosses (cosmics/teleious/etc) would always drop X number of gear pieces, which you'd have to hope were 1) something your character could actually use (only one try per week!) and 2) that you were lucky enough to win the loot roll. Other gear (for the longest time, this was pvp gear) was made available by grinding a slow-to-acquire currency. It sucked unless you were either really lucky or really into grinding.
Then, at some point, they realized that their playerbase was more than tryhard grinders and realized they had to please them, too. In the current expansion and the last one, there's been several catch-up methods implemented. Where in CO, I have to spend weeks grinding for Heroic trash gear, in wow, equivalent gear was available just by doing content in zones like Tanaan Jungle--you could get several pieces in a single day and gear up quickly. Casual players could "call it good" and still have a decent character, while hardcore players could have their alts springboard into endgame raid content without wasting too much time grinding mediocre rewards, only to turn around and grind hardcore endgame rewards.
Now, as the final weeks of wow's current expansion unfold, they are literally throwing decent-level gear at players. Something like 2-4 pieces per invasion event site cleared--a process that only takes about 15 minutes, with 2 available per character every hour. I'm not saying CO needs to yield rewards at that kind of rate (it doesn't) but understanding the purpose is important. In this case, it's to help get players who may be still behind gearwise caught up to see the endgame content in one final push.
So in short, while wow was grindy at some point, and still can be, it's nowhere near as bad as CO in its current state. Not even close, actually. See, the developers long ago realized that casual players play their game too, and while players should still have to work hard toward earning the best gear, it's okay to throw said casuals a bone as well.
- - -
Now in general, people play video games to feel good about what they're doing. That's the whole purpose of a video game--to entertain. If a game no longer makes them feel good, players will eventually pack up, leave, and probably find a new game that does. Some may stay, either out of some illusion of investment or because they're stuck in a habitual rut, but ultimately, people move on. CO isn't special in this regard.
If there's one thing the modern Asian pay-to-win MMOs have figured out, it's that rewarding players is important. It makes them feel good about what they're doing, even if they're trying to scale an absurd paywall in the process.
Oops, it would seem I'm rambling now..
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Now, a true question...what exactly do people mean by "Alt-Friendly"?
Do they mean, play on toons other than the alt to gear them up so that way they won't play them for the content they geared them up for thus making it difficult to get cosmics going?
Or do they mean how the game rewards us with stuff that our alts can use, like costumes, powers, most vehicles, most devices, etc.?
When it comes to being alt friendly, this game is perhaps one of the most alt-friendly game I've ever played. Vast majority of MMOs out there do not let you gear up alts using your mains, nor do they have shareable resources. Note that there are exceptions, such as Marvel Heroes 2016, which does have shared resources. The real problem is that it takes to long to gear up toons due to the hideous grind. If the devs made things cheaper or rewarded more GCR/SCR than they do currently, the grind would be more bearable. Of course they could make it more fun with less one-shotting mechanics, less punishing mechancis, and more rewarding mechanics in fights.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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What I fear is happening in CO is that grinding for gear is becoming the focus. Regular missions don't drop anything of use. While all the good stuff comes from running end-game mini-raids. The new zone is a little bit better in this regard, but there's still a vast range of content that drops horribly outdated & useless gear.
Now it's even more expensive and difficult to get Q-gear or other leveling gear. What's happening is a myopic view of the game post-40. While no thought has been given to gearing and leveling pre-40. We need some attention in this area, especially if questionite gear is going to rise in price.
- Improve gear drops from standard missions.
- Streamline the pre-40 mission chains.
- Make contact granted mission content repeatable (like it is in STO).
There has to be more to the game than just grinding post 40 content for Justice Gear.
This is because Cryptic doesn't know what they are doing anymore. Its decisions like this that drive players away. They are completely clueless on what brings players back. You think that they would learn from their poor decisions and realize how little they know about balance and time spent for gain.
Everything worthwhile getting in the game from loot assigned to specific mobs are gone. Now you have to grind your **** off in end game for gear just to play that very same end game. Rampages were meant to have us acquire this special gear and then use that to play end game content efficiently like Warzones.
Cryptic. You have it **** backwards.
You should let us farm all content with all the characters we want without limitations so we can choose which characters gets the rewards for each bit of content. Having more characters is rewarded by letting us grind everything faster. You should take advice from the original devs for this game before you proceed.
Why do we even have this feedback thread if devs are dead set on making Justice Gear another piece of content that is anti- player retention?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
to get one OV secondary (best in game) requires 5000 VT
you can get slightly over 300 each day with 500 every 5th day if you do "Playing both sides", It will take 13 days at ~ 20 min a day to acquire. or 4.5 hours per piece
The non wrath secondary gear (second, third best?) from the GCR Vendor requires 100 GCR & 200 SCR
if you are lucky you can get 28 GCR in one day if you manage to get your daily done, usually takes closer to 3 days because of timing, not having the right roles to fill, etc.
on average it takes about an hour to do one cosmic, occasionally less, usually more, and sometimes with no reward. it takes 15 runs (not counting daily) to get 105 GCR and 150 SCR, which means you will have to also have to do more cosmics, rampages & or alerts to make up the difference. so on average it takes one hour per run x 15 runs = 15 hours PLUS an additional 50 SCR which would take another couple hours. so the second best secondary gear in the game will take ~17 hours per piece, but possibly less days
- They're really doubling down on this alt-hostile, anti-casual, anti-player grindfest.
- They're eliminating account-bound items to attempt to force casual players into grinding several times.
- They're bottle-necking Recognition rewards to limit how much you can hoard, to keep you always in need, always grinding again.
- They're locking Recognition to each character to counter casual play on several alts and avoid people spreading their efforts across a variety of characters -- directly counter to how people want to enjoy the game.
- They're raising prices more to demand even more time from people.
This aggressive manipulation does not make me want to spend hours grinding and grinding. It kills all interest I once had in the game. It makes me avoid it like the plague, and I know I'm not alone here. How does driving casual players away keep the game in a healthy state?
This is a game I really want to like, and I wouldn't be so vocal on the forums if I didn't care. Come on devs, help me out here.
Endgame rewards like justice is a good idea for players that want to improve their 'main". But don't take away the fun from us that like building alts from scratch either!
Thanks for all the responses thus far and try to keep it civil!
Omicron - Lvl 4x - Mind
Emerald Myst - Lvl 2x - Claws/Fighting Hybrid
Epsilon - Lvl 2x - Blade
Asterius - Lvl 1x - Electric/Void Hybrid
As the top tier gear, I absolutely understand that Justice needs revised pricing commensurate with its status but many here feel this change would be more appropriate when the Rampage requirements are properly addressed (i.e. RNG is a harsh mistress), whether it be Rampages supplemented by a weekly mission, drop tables are reviewed/expanded, tokens are reviewed, etc.
I have most of the stuff I want already unlocked, so my issues with pricing changes on gear (and the previously implemented legacy costume price changes) aren't motivated by self interest, but rather from the perspective of what new or casual players' reaction will be when they realize the time commitment they're in for on certain things. If the goal is to trigger more real spending in a Free-to-Play game (which I understand is crucial to CO's continued functioning), I feel like there should be some compromise between the silk glove (too cheap) and the iron gauntlet (current pricing) when players do their own internal cost/benefit analysis of whatever digital good they are coveting.
Personally I'd rather have the end game be less grindy, but require a bit of actual money to be spent. I never felt bad shelling out for the 30 drifter salvage a set of JG costs.
I do think that with these changes (to pricing), it sucks the fun out of CO, which is the last thing it needs.
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My super cool CC build and how to use it.
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Block timing explained
Of course getting end-game gear should be hard, but there should also be many ways of grinding the resources to get that gear, not just *a few*. Players should feel excited about being able to acquire end-game gear, not frustrated and doubtful.
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I am @RavenForce in game
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I think a good move would be to make a second set of Justice Gear available in the GCR vendor that has the same cost as Distinguished gear, with no token requirements. That way people who have tokens can still use them, but people who want to avoid Rampages entirely have that option as well. Then throw in the ability to convert tokens to GCR/SCR to effectively make up the difference between the two sets for people who have some tokens, but not enough, who would like to abandon Rampages right now. However, I think part of the reason they didn't do something like that is because they don't want Rampages to be completely abandoned overnight, as I imagine they would be since there don't appear to be very many people who would actually 'enjoy' rampages.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
If players want to avoid doing GCR content, that is their choice. However, that does not mean that the devs have to give easy access/any access to get those rewards/gear if you don't do them. I dont do Rampages, so I dont expect to have access to Justice Gear because the needed tokens only drop in Rampages. As you have pointed out, "Fair's only fair."
Besides, you do not necessarily need Justice Gear to do the Q-Warzone as others before me have said. I agree with this because I have tried it with Mercenary and Legion gear. Mercenary and Vigilante gear are getting price drops in the Q-store. There are other top/end level gear that you can acquire without doing GCR content. This is where creativity comes in. It will be a welcome challenge, in my opinion, to create new toons that are built to handle the Q-Warzone.
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Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Perhaps it is time to start a thread in the main forums about this issue. If the Cosmic Event had a reset timer of 2 hours (as it did at launch) more players would be able to participate and obtain GCR at a better pace.
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What ever happened to farming for materials/money on many different characters then purchase/craft items and give them straight away to the character they were meant to be put on? Bye bye account wide resources.
They might as well convert costume change costs from Resources to a new currency that isn't tradable.
Instead, give us a way to earn GCR that does not require a large group of people of a overly specialized team [main reason it takes roughly 2 hours to get a TA team together in my timezone is healers are virtually non exsistant, and the players avaiable are barely capable of TA]. so basically something like TA, with a lesser amount of gcr and scr rewarded, but also providing a lesser challange.
Member of Paragon Dawn: Because some people like friendly helpful communities.
Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
I would suggest that this is being done a bit backwards. Until you have time to review and adjust the challenge and reward of the end game content, arbitrarily increasing the time that it takes to get the gear to successfully complete that content is inadvisable.
I also have a question for you - what in your opinion is the intended, reasonable amount of game time for an average player to invest to get one piece of Justice gear?
I would also ask what the purpose of asking for feedback was, if when 90% of the feedback is negative there is no change or adjustment?
I have repeatedly suggested that GCR should be rewarded in other content that is already available such as Unity missions (since your toon needs to be level 40 to do them), Rampages and Adventure Packs/Comic Series for level 40 toons. So far I have seen no response from the devs.
For example, Unity missions could grant a 3 GCR's after the final mission for the day with diminishing returns after 5 runs a day (they can be stacked in the mission journal each day if not finished) and Adventure Packs/Comic Series could grant 3GCR's for finishing them (since you can do 4 a day of each) and stop granting them after 8 runs for level 40 toons. Rampages could grant between 3 to 5 GCR for each run with diminishing/no returns after 5 runs for level 40 toons (this will make more sense once the token requirement is removed for Justice Gear).
Kigatilik:
Key Players: dog tank, main tank, main tank healer, dps healer, and a couple of people to focus down ice tombs; a backup tank is good to have but not essential.
Everyone Else: if you can avoid dying, avoid disrupting dog control, avoid stealing aggro, and not kill people with hidden tombs, you're golden.
Qwyjibo:
Key Players: heart CCers (typically you want either two, or one and a secondary cc/healer), main tanks, main tank healers.
Everyone Else: if you can figure out not shooting the hearts, you're good.
Teleiosaurus:
Key Players: main tanks, baby tank, main tank healers, baby tank healer.
Everyone Else: Can you manage an average of 2,000 dps for 5s against a target with fairly high damage resistance, while possibly being disrupted by the baby's AoEs.
One of these things is not like the others.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
One of the main problems not mentioned that I find with the Cosmics is the timing of the DPS attacks. When to start attacking, when to stop, when to know that the tanks have a firm grip on their aggro against that Cosmic. Personally, I find that if I play DPS it is good to wait until the health bar of the Cosmic Monster reaches 10 million; it is around there that the tanks seem to have aggro under control. Referring back to the dino, this should be done twice; once at initial aggro, again after the baby shows up. If I wait untill 10 million hp to start DPS attacking after the baby shows up, I can usually pick up the baby AOE attack pattern and act accordingly.
I guess I will keep saying this; The Leaderboad should be removed, especially from the Cosmic Events. If it was not there, more attention could be spent on defeating the Cosmic Monster instead of where your name might be placed on the leaderboard. The Cosmic Events are supposed to be a team effort, not a *I did better than you* effort.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
My super cool CC build and how to use it.