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Updating the Adventure Packs and Comic Series
pantagruel01
Posts: 7,091 Arc User
The Adventure Packs and Comic Series are some of the better quality content this game has, but are only minimally run because they have very low rewards relative to the time investment (5 scr, 2k q, plus usually some q boxes, for missions that typically take upwards of an hour), but their difficulty isn't high enough to justify larger rewards. Thus, a proposal for updating both:
Difficulty Update
Just making the missions harder is a problem because they're designed to be available at level 10 (which means they're actually available at level 7), and you get the same spawn sizes regardless of level; 4 henchmen are far more threatening to a level 10 than to a level 40. Thus, it should really only buff difficulty (and rewards; lower level should get decent xp) at higher level.
My understanding of the way they're coded is that there are three versions of each map, based on team size (I think 1, 2-3, 4-5), though it might be that spawns are instead variable based on team size. This gives a really simple way to scale up: starting at some level (probably 35, as that's when SCR starts being granted) just count each player as two players, and add a fourth version of each map (or spawn, if it works that way) for 8+. The fourth version is mostly identical to the third version, except the general critters are replaced with Tough versions, and the bosses are replaced with new (probably Legendary, with minor new mechanics) versions.
Reward Update
The problem with just boosting rewards is that players naturally gravitate to whatever the most efficient option is, rather than doing all the content. The easiest solution to this is adding a mission rotation, which gives a large bonus to the currently active content. Or possibly two rotations, one for the solo/small team version, one for the new (8+ player strength) version (this can be done by it using mission items that are auto-granted by the open missions). This also avoids the map reset exploits which were always so common for APs.
Difficulty Update
Just making the missions harder is a problem because they're designed to be available at level 10 (which means they're actually available at level 7), and you get the same spawn sizes regardless of level; 4 henchmen are far more threatening to a level 10 than to a level 40. Thus, it should really only buff difficulty (and rewards; lower level should get decent xp) at higher level.
My understanding of the way they're coded is that there are three versions of each map, based on team size (I think 1, 2-3, 4-5), though it might be that spawns are instead variable based on team size. This gives a really simple way to scale up: starting at some level (probably 35, as that's when SCR starts being granted) just count each player as two players, and add a fourth version of each map (or spawn, if it works that way) for 8+. The fourth version is mostly identical to the third version, except the general critters are replaced with Tough versions, and the bosses are replaced with new (probably Legendary, with minor new mechanics) versions.
Reward Update
The problem with just boosting rewards is that players naturally gravitate to whatever the most efficient option is, rather than doing all the content. The easiest solution to this is adding a mission rotation, which gives a large bonus to the currently active content. Or possibly two rotations, one for the solo/small team version, one for the new (8+ player strength) version (this can be done by it using mission items that are auto-granted by the open missions). This also avoids the map reset exploits which were always so common for APs.
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I wonder just how exactly the npc database for APs works. Do the NPCs in the AP share an entry with same type NPCs outside of it? Is there a version of each NPC for each difficulty level? I wonder that because it seems like a simpler method is to just go in and buff the various entries for each NPC, but that depends on just how many versions there would be to mess with.
Then there's also the question of if we really even need to update the difficulty. APs already give SCR so any reward of that tier or lower is already considered acceptable, and it's been established that people in this game by and large don't care if content is challenging or not. In fact, announcing that the difficulty has been updated seems like it might even be more likely to cause people to continue to stay away from it under the assumption that "they made it for elites only".
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
As for their difficulty being broken, eh. You can do Grab/Burst/Smash alerts to get SCR, resources and questionite and those are steamrolls. Unless we're talking about making APs into GCR content then I'm not sure it really matters. If the goal is to just make this active content again, the rotation will do that. These could just be the equivalent of longer steamrolls. I mean that'd be enough for me, I'd do them more than I do now if they were upgraded to good sources of these rewards via the rotation.
Simplest way to do the rotation is probably daily quests, rather than building a system that attempts to boost the rewards directly. Again, with the neat multiple choice rewards that some events have gotten. SCR, Questionite, Resource... and oh now that i think about it XP. Those could be the four choices.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Give every AP/CS a chance to drop a DUC. Said chance is proportional to how long the AP/CS is (ie. Serpent Lantern is super short so it gets the lowest chance, Whiteout and Resistance are super long so they have a better chance)
DONE! I did what no dev could and fixed AP/CS \o/
Which is different from:
and
which are the only things you mentioned in the response I'm referring to. You're also still leaving out changing the team size detection system so it counts players of certain levels multiple times, and also a system which will directly boost AP rewards temporarily. See, if you only mention one or two things it sounds super simple! But once you start piling on everything else it becomes clear that this is a fairly complex set of tasks.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
That's fine, but when I was talking about complexity I was referencing the entire suggestion, not just pieces of it.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.