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bluhman
Posts: 2,410 Arc User
Please place more focus on developing permanent content sources rather than cycling events.
I'd place emphasis on making something similar to an Adventure Pack going forward, but with added benefits of nonlinear level flow (think like Resistance's choice between Cell Blocks B or C).
There's numerous reasons I'd want this:
I'd place emphasis on making something similar to an Adventure Pack going forward, but with added benefits of nonlinear level flow (think like Resistance's choice between Cell Blocks B or C).
There's numerous reasons I'd want this:
- There's lots of content hubs that were created that have simply been left at dead ends: Project Clockwork Cislunar base, UNITY headquarters, and Qliphothic Warzone are the biggest examples I can think of.
- Event-based content is entirely missable by players who aren't available to attend the event for the given month. This is a bigger concern as time continues since the player base of this game's constantly becoming older, meaning more real-life "hi i don't want to lose my job and end up in debt" obligations. Having events be on timers is both going to sour the experience for these players, and in many cases, is a bit disappointing to explain to players who might've recently come back and ask what's new - only to tell them that all the new stuff was just temporary.
- It highlights the worst aspects of the shrunken zone cap. Very few, if any events, make use of queues, and the issues of limited zone space come up again and again even in more secluded zones like Desert or Canada.
- It's not fun is the big thing. There's been no change to the gameplay behind many of the cycling events since they were first released. The only reason to do it is for the cosmetic unlocks they offer and my choices for getting those are to either set aside blocks of 2-3 hours to get the tokens required to unlock them in-game, or to pay you money directly to just get the unlocks immediately. One's not fun to do and the other is in principle foolish for me to do because it's actively rewarding cryptic for doing a bad job.
- Provide content that is both available at all times and not time-limited, meaning returning players can still play it whenever they come back and it suits the busy schedule that some players might have.
- Be capable of housing its own set of gear, unlocks or cosmetics inside it to make doing the content set desirable - this could be to an extent lesser than the time spent on making new Event unlocks even, as this can be balanced against the novelty of the mission designed that makes it inherently more likely to be played.
- ALSO, if you implement non-linearity or exploration elements into that, that'll be more time spent potentially engaging players, which can drive loyalty for the game higher or inspire further expansion.
- Improve the team's knowledge with working with your game's engine.
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and the game stays the same, It's Limited time recycled Content with no Substance
> I'm SO SICK of those Alerts and right now the game is on Alert AUTO PILOT
> and the game stays the same, It's Limited time recycled Content with no Substance
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Works with anything....nothing new
I doubt we'll ever see a new AP or CS. Just not the resources for it. I'd kind of be happy if they just fixed eido so it was doable again. Basically scrap what was there before and rebuild it from the ground up to make it something other than a dps tag team event in an empty box.
I actually run the permanent content they added, and don't really farm events much, so my actions are trying to get you what you ( and I ) want, but that's pretty quiet in comparison to the hordes of people shouting "MORE EVENTS PLZ" with their actions.
At least we got QWZ so even if we never get anything else permanent, at least i have that.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I try to do the Mechanon lunar mission now and then and often do the Cyberlord chain.
I still haven't done the revised Destroyer Factory.
Are people still doing Teleios?
I still wish the new mission chain from Ladyhawke didn't have the initial one day wait for each part of the chain. Still don't understand what function that delay serves.
The Destorid OM gets some use, probably because it is right next to RenCen.
I'm still hoping for the cosmic shark thingy in Lemuria.
Now and then yes, but I can only speak for a certain channel that I'm a part of. Think that channel might be the only one that does it anymore, and then only when there isn't an event to farm.
Yes, again certain channels that I'm in do it - generally when there isn't an event to farm. It seems like nowadays if you want to do TA you have to be part of certain private channels.
It's kinda like QWZ dailies. Every day you get a different daily quest. Difference is that QWZ is 5, and Ladyhawke is 1. Probably to give some variety to what you're doing every day. S'my best guess on that.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I don't know where you're getting this impression that nobody runs the permanent content, considering there's videos of Death Rattle missions on youtube. There's just nothing there left, I got everything I could from TA/Mechanon Cislunar/Cosmics/QWZ/DeathRattle.
And what's the alternative to doing events? Not doing events? Why would I run something available year-round with things I've already unlocked and explored to their full potential when I'm on a 2-3 week time limit to get a backpack that might not exist in the store next year? I make costumes, so I want access to all the possible options I can get in case I find something neat I can build with that. It is what it is and I have no control over the developers as to what they interpret those actions as - unless I try and speak.
for the record I personally don't have anything wrong with Alerts in experience - they make team forming easy, they are in theory easily expandable, and they have good perks tied to them. Maybe too good, which is part of why developers got the impression that making permanent content was done for forever because they made something that has carrots that outweigh the reward scraps everything else hands out.
Not sure why you think I was talking about you specifically. I didn't mention you specifically, and all my various identifiers indicated the greater playerbase, not any given individual. After all, it's not as if you suddenly changing what you do would change anything - all the other players would still be doing what they do and you'd just be getting out-voted by their actions the way I do.
As far as all your reasons for why you wouldn't do those particular bits of content; great reasons, clearly the majority of the playerbase shares them and that's why that content gets ignored. Unfortunately, that doesn't serve as a great argument to make more of that stuff; in fact, it serves as an argument against making more. You're basically making an argument against more permanent content and arguing for more temporary stuff - I mean, just look how strongly it being temporary managed to tear you away from everything else. That sort of ability to motivate people to do something is important, and it's what the devs are looking for.
As for where I get the impression that nobody runs that stuff, the fact that getting TA groups together has become limited to a few private channels, the QWZ isn't particularly populated, and the stuff you and other people said about the death rattle missions. I'm willing to take your word when you said that stuff was crap and you have no interest. A video of someone running a mission doesn't mean it's popular - hell I have a bunch of videos of me running the QWZ dailies, doesn't change how empty that place is. And of course, the well-known phenomena that once there's an event on, sometimes you can't even get a group together for Kiga.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Before you bring up Destroyer Factory, saying that that's exactly what that short suggestion was, keep in mind:
- This was adding the unlocks as random drops. Grind time. Most events have a store specifically to sell those new items, from missions that are guaranteed to offer the currency needed.
- Versus most events (which remain pretty static in difficulty) Destroyer's Factory got a big difficulty upgrade - this used to be soloable, but now it requires 5 people. This ties in to the grind duration as well, since that's going to be a lot of effort to set up a team and defeat a boss that focuses heavily on kiting, and that reward not even being the guarantee of a costume unlock.
- It's also not new content. This was essentially a 4-month long rehaul attempt that lead to basically re-engineering a lair to operate in the same fashion as it did prior to rehaul, minus the difficulty changes. As a result, this isn't like TA where the entire lair is a complete reimagining of the original lair that has its own storyline, scenario, boss mechanics, or so forth. I ran it once and fought my way to the end before getting flattened by Fake Destroyer and being disappointed that, really, nothing in the course of events had changed.
And that's why I'm also stressing new content: there's no expectation that this stuff should act the same as something previously (mitigating the need for 3-4 months of testing things and/or temporarily disabling an entire past area) and this can be implemented using the techniques learned from seeing how events worked.My super cool CC build and how to use it.
And if the unlocks associated with something permanent are within something gated via perks (i.e. QWZ unlocks, Teleios Ascendant) that's still items that can potentially be unlocked via direct spending, provided the currency in question was Questionite that is.
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My characters
1. Vikorin Headress: A Device that allows you to pull closed enemies to melee range and applies Force Sheath on you, with Fancy Visuals
2. Crystal Shards that are require to Rank up by Crafting, Magic Imbue Gloves (death rattle) to Rank 3
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline#/discussion/1213708/magic-imbued-gloves-upgrades-needed-items
the other crystals are from different sources
The thing that really needs wrestling with is recognizing, ok, why are events making so much buck? And then sieving that out from all the other bad stuff that Events have from their own implementation that I explained in the OP. In this case, it's mainly stuff that's easy to jump into (provided the zone is open... By the way, another thing to state as a negative for Events), can use currencies that can be accrued from previous efforts, or just flat-out bought, and can have extra things added to them at later dates - technically, that's every single lair or AP or whatever that's been made to date, but it's only events that can really get headline status for those since that's kind of in their nature to be exclusive and limited-time offers.
Making difficulty scaling matter (i.e. have it significantly affect both difficulty and rewards) and making content scale with team size (e.g. adventure packs) might help. The APs do seem like they'd be a prime candidate for a revamp, as they actually have most of that stuff already wired in (let's be honest about new content: we don't have the player base to get a lot of it).
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
One thing events have is great PR. Like, the day an event starts there's a horde of people who know about it. Even if someone wasn't following PTS, they know what rewards the event gives right away, cause there's a vendor that shows them - that vendor also has all the quests that tell players what to do. That vendor is also nicely positioned out in the open, in a prominent spot, often with some eye-catching stuff around them to make them stand out. In addition, even if someone doesn't notice that vendor, there's environmental stuff that people will notice, like new mobs standing around, or the entire fricken sky and lighting of the zone changing that would make them go "...what's going on? what's this? I should ask around". Events are really good at making it known that they are here.
Then there's TA, which has a daily quest on Lt. Patil...that sits next to a bunch of other fairly humdrum daily quests... just kinda blending in with them. The lair itself is literally out in the middle of a frozen wasteland, and the NPC that teleports you there is literally hidden in an underground base. Like... is there a word for anti-marketing? No wonder the answers I usually get in zone when I LFG there are "wtf is TA?", from players who have been playing the game for months, or even years. Who's decision was it to treat TA like it's in witness protection!??! 0:<
Same thing with QWZ and all the updated lairs. Like sure, people get quests for the lairs while leveling up, but it doesn't seem like the situation has changed much in so far as getting a group for those lairs if you're not part of a channel and so they just move on and keep leveling and never go back for a second look. Hell I bet there are people who level past Robot Factory, and then when they see someone LFG for it they go "well I leveled past that so I'll just ignore that".
I remember once I mentioned something about all this and that's how we got that teleporter next to Defender that sends you straight to Until HQ. Yeah... we got a flat disk on the floor that's surrounded by a wall that hides it. Marketing! *jazz hands*
People can't run content they don't know about! >.<
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
PR isn't everything, though it's a big part. Consider Ladyhawke and Death Rattle, she's literally front-and-center in Defender's circle, and yet we don't see LFG messages in zone about people wanting to run Death Rattle all the time - mainly that's because of the decision to have these missions "immersively" meted out and limited to only one run every 24 hours and that they don't have much rewards in them. Really all they hand out is some unique auras for your current character and questionite, something already established to be in a ridiculous surplus thanks to alerts.
Having difficulty matter again would be a great first step, I agree. I remember when Elite SL was the quickest way to get top-quality secondaries, but today those things don't really stand up to the current token-based items you can get, they're just standard purple-quality secondaries. In fact I don't think it affects drop types anymore, and it has such a negligible effect on xp/resource rates that it's more trouble than it's really worth. This theme of work vs. reward keeps coming up again and again. I'd say moreso than PR, because for a good while a couple years back, TA runs were quite common in the cosmic circle. They fell out of favor because the people doing them ran out of things to directly unlock from them: everything they could get from a TA run was also obtainable from doing a cosmic - and the cosmics, when they worked, were faster, gave their rewards to a much bigger selection of players, and often when one suceeded, they could move on to challenge another in a different zone or instance.
PR's never a problem: everything new can get posted directly on the launcher and have a shiny NPC placed in the only location most players even visit. It's the gameplay content, and especially its challenge versus reward, that determines if it catches on or not. Events overcome most of that because their difficulty is tailored to be somewhere above alerts but below cosmics, and then peddle their rewards in a scale entirely separate from most normal currencies like Q or G, and also within that cursed limited window of time. Priority 1, limited time content, with rewards (often cosmetic) that operate outside the realm of normal reward quantities. Priceless items, and a learning curve that's pushing the envelope for most casual players. And if they can't get it to work? Lockbox and Key time, get that salvage and bypass the farming. Paying to bypass Winning.
And you don't see LFG for death rattle because you can solo those, and people aren't gonna spend time LFG for something you can just solo in less time than it would take to find 1 more person to run it with. Death rattle also gives SCR.
As for TA falling out of favor due to cosmics being faster... that doesn't really make sense because you don't have to do one or the other, you can do cosmics, and then go run TA, and that's actually the fastest way to get your tokens. Even if you have limited time, your limited time might not necessarily fall on the window where cosmics are up and people are ready to start them. Cosmics have a specific audience with certain play time qualities and level of ability they cater to, as does TA - the difference is Cosmics are better advertised ( monster week, have their own NPC ), so there might be a huge part of TA's potential audience that doesn't even know it exists.
And yes, PR is easy, but they gotta do it, and if they did it would potentially have a huge impact. You can stuff something full of solid diamond nuclear powered furry costume pieces with a poly count of 3 million a piece, but if people don't know that content or its rewards exist then you just have a bunch of really valuable paper weights sitting in a hole somewhere.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I do wonder about the time factor. 3 cosmics can go down in 40 minutes or less with the right crew, or drag on for hours. Maybe a good average (including wait times to start) is ca. 1.0-1.5 hours for 3 of them. If players have limited time cosmics may be the only thing they go for on a given, especially if they are weaker players who need to be carried a bit (?). So, revamping lairs and adding more content like that may not attract the more casual players, and then the hardcore players with more time to burn may get burned out or have all the rewards and not do them so much. So, how to make the revamped material more appealing to casual players (if that is desirable). That's where having a sliding difficulty factor that affects rewards as well might be the ticket.
You CAN lure me into content I don't like with rewards. Save the Earth is fine with a good team but since I'm often in pick-up groups I usually find it completely dreadful... but I do it once anyway for that 'do every alert' mission. But I won't end up liking the content or the game because of it. The converse, if anything.
As such, I would discourage tacking on rewards to get players to run things they don't like. This is essentially the OPs argument against the events! I will concede that a nudge to get people into things they might not otherwise attend to could tip them into things they would repeat with pleasure... or at least make it easier for people who do like the group content to find groups. How about a long-term mission that sends players to every lair much the way they're pushed into alerts? I've been hoping for something to make it easier to do the Monster Island and Lemuria intro events which I enjoy quite a bit but usually gets lackluster interest at best.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
That's precisely why I suggest content that has elements of randomness or branching paths, as that's going to add more possible ground to explore on repeated playthroughs of the content. That's a small fraction as to why Alerts work, because while the scenarios are similar, they do cycle between different villain factions and maps, as well as (if you're lone-queuing) the random element of what characters you'll be grouped with upon a run. Then there's the other extremely large fraction of why Alerts work, which is precisely what's brought up here: reward. And not just reward, but reward versus time and effort, but really it's that very small element of randomness that keeps it from being a mindless repetitive farm - and that's the death of any content when it boils down to it.
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My characters
Does that mean I think we need more alerts? No, not necessarily. Does it mean we need better alerts and queued content? Absolutely.
New Content would be nice, but I don't know how many people have completed zones and all the side missions available.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
He's likely talking about the new alerts that would be made, not making a statement on current alerts.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
That is an interesting opinion. Thank you for sharing it.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.