Problem with GCR and endgame content.

beleaua78 · October 13

We NEED more GCR rewards across different types of content in CO. Right now the only endgame content that you need GCR gear for is Cosmics, which is also the...only consistent way to actually get GCR. Am I the only one seeing the issue here? You shouldn't have to farm the gear you need for content on the content you need it for. There is nothing beyond Cosmics (including Eidolon), it's not like they're a gatekeeping mechanism for what comes after that you would need to prepare for. It's just them. They're both the means and the end.

Would it be that big of a deal to sprinkle some GCR on Rampages, daily UNITY missions, Open Missions and stuff like Andrith Ruins, Rhinoplasty and DRF/DRA? It doesn't have to be a lot. Maybe something like 1 GCR up to three times per day per character for OMs, 2-3 GCR once per day for lairs and Rampages and 4 GCR at the end of your daily UNITY streak. How many people even remember or know there's a random Gadroon Open Mission in Canada or a VIPER one near Area 51 in The Desert?

Another problem that stems from the current approach to endgame is just how insane the trial and error times are to even get Cosmics done. It shouldn't take 2 hours to prepare Kigatilik, or 37 failed Dino DPS checks to pass the numbers of whatever sadist decided on what they should be. I should not have to bring my strongest character to farm a currency I don't need on my strongest character while trying to gear up another, especially when the gear I need is bound to character, not account! Besides, as long as nobody on the current dev team seems to be able to properly fix Cosmics or stop fiddling with what wasn't broken in the first place, it's very "slap-in-the-face-ish" to only be able to farm endgame currency off of this broken content. Seriously, the past few months have been pathetic, there's no other word for it.

And I mean sure, if you're doing this at peak time hours when people usually do bring their strongest toons things "tend" to go smoother. But there are plenty of people who do not play during peak hours, so what about them? We simply do not have the population numbers for whatever current philosophy sits behind Cosmics right now.

Not to mention the way this would breathe some life back into the game. I want to see people fly about a bit more, maybe doing Bullet Bound for Biselle from time to time for that 1 meagre GCR, or have a reason to do my UNITY dailies because those can be pretty cool sometimes. I want Rampage private queues to not take 2 hours because people forgot they have CO left on their second monitor posing in Ren Cen, and I want to be able to do TA or TT more often, not just once in a blue moon when the same five people in my SG are online at the same and proper time just because it's the only other endgame content that gives some GCR. Give people some incentive to engage with the content that already exists, because there is quite a lot of it and I think you guys forgot just how big Champions Online actually is. You don't need another QZ, you just need to give people a reason to do stuff they can already do.

So keep doing what you're doing with the PVDs and the stuff added to the Recognition vendor, lockboxes, ultimates and all that. It's a decent idea, keeps things fresh for veterans. But we seriously need a change in the approach to endgame content, because there just ain't a lot of it right now, and the things we do have are so insidiously balanced that it's no wonder we have no new players while the ones we do have leave the moment they realize they have to spend three months no-lifing the game for one character in a game where people tend to make ten every day...

Wake up Champions, before we fall into a coma :I

warcanch · October 13

This is indicative of why a large(?) portion of game content goes ignored.

Some content simply doesn't offer decent, possible rewards.

Some content offers decent possible rewards but if RNG hates you, well, then forget about it.

However, if more possible rewards were purchasable at a vendor, then you could add tokens to those encounters so that, after time, one could purchase the reward they were hoping for.

Sure, add requirements, such as needing some 100/1000 kill perk as well. Then you have players playing more content besides just endgame stuff.

And, I'm talking about lairs, open missions, adventure packs, etc that, at least for me, don't get anyone playing them currently.

Unknown · October 14

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jaazaniah1 · October 14

Well, as long as we are posting moonshots that will never happen:

I'd like more solo-able content that gives modest gcr (maybe slightly better than the 5x QWZ dailies). Why? Because lots endgame level characters in the comics work mostly solo. To save the devs time, this would be done most easily through the long-delayed revamps to the already existing Unity missions (how many players who have joined in the last few years even know Unity 2 exists?). Buff the mobs, add a few of the villains we only see in a single mission (maybe even random Nemesis villains!), give some decent rewards and call it a day.

Unknown · October 15

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theravenforce · October 16

I think some of the issue around why there isn't more accessible content that grants GCR is due to the "idea" behind why we have GCR which is to reward high end content.

I do agree that this needs to shift some, so GCR is more accessible but I think that would be the final step in a larger plan to make GCR/SCR more accessible by making it an account wide currency. (But I don't think that can happen sadly)

beleaua78 · October 16

theravenforce wrote: »

I think some of the issue around why there isn't more accessible content that grants GCR is due to the "idea" behind why we have GCR which is to reward high end content.

I do agree that this needs to shift some, so GCR is more accessible but I think that would be the final step in a larger plan to make GCR/SCR more accessible by making it an account wide currency. (But I don't think that can happen sadly)

Yeah, the current philosophy behind endgame content is obvious. But I think we need to face the facts here. CO nowadays has almost the same amount of endgame content it had 15 years ago, minus Grond. Unless the devs have a hidden plan they're working on to bring in a thousand new players for Cosmics to really become an easily accessible daily regularity, we must focus on making the rest of the game's content more enticing instead, so that the 100 people still playing have something more to do. And, like I said, it would also help maintain new players due to them not crumbling under the brutal time requirement of what they have to do to become powerful enough for Cosmics.

CO is a good game with some decent content. Somebody has to do something to bring it out of the attic. No person in their right mind is going to download a superhero MMO that is advertised as "be the hero you want to be" and expect to have to no-life the ^!#$ out of it like they're trying to min-max their Paladin in WoW.

As for the person who said "moonshots that'll never happen", I think it's really sad that we've lost all hope for these changes happening. The work it would take to make all the forsaken content in CO enticing again is probably one evening of fiddling with leveled lists for Kai. I believe there is a certain intent behind endgame being as miserable as it currently is. And it's not good...

Unknown · October 17

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jaazaniah1 · October 23

One issue, at least for me, is that there is relatively little intended solo-play at endgame. Most activity is focused on endgame raids involving 5+ players (QWZ dailies and Ladyhawke serials being exceptions as they can be soloed by experienced players with decent builds, including healers). I assume that this is so because it is easier for the devs to develop content that relies on the tank-healer-dps trinity than to develop something that is both challenging and fun that can be done by a single character of any role.

However, I enjoy doing things on my own, and, frankly, there are times of the day when there are not many other players on, and it's also hard to get people to do much other endgame content than the 3 cosmics and sometimes Eido and TT (and the last 2 happen with less frequency during events, some of which are quite long). The devs have spent some time in revamping various lairs and open missions, but once players have farmed the rare drops they want these have become virtually dead content, except when used to shore up event content (thinking of Andrith, Destoryer's Factory, DRA and TA).

Hence, my wish is for the devs to develop or revamp some endgame content that can be done either by a group or by an individual that gives a decent reward (that is why I brought up Unity, since that is just a revamp of existing assets). If the worry is that gcr will become too abundant, put a reasonable per-character daily cap on what can be earned.

thisiscraftaaa · October 24

That really is the biggest problem, at least to me: Cosmics are the place to go to grind the currencies necessary for gear that you'd only ever use to carry more weight at Cosmics or to more reliably run Therakiel's Temple with, and they have no purpose beyond that. Maybe if there was something beyond costumes tied to the different endgame Lairs to encourage grinding them dedicatedly in a way that would necessitate going for Justice/Distinguished/Virtuous beyond "I want to be a bit more reliable at my role" then it wouldn't be quite as grievous, but as it stands? Cosmics are the things you run because "you need the gear to do your job," but then "doing your job" consists of just running Cosmics. Endlessly. (Or Eidolon I guess, but the number of people that bring undergeared bad ATs and bad FFs to Eidolon because "how else will I get good gear?" says Eidolon has basically the same issue.)

And the other half of that issue is that, ours is already a small playerbase that continues slowly declining in population (that's just a sad fact, nothing more and nothing less) and Cosmics being the route- since nobody runs TA pretty much ever, and nobody uses TT to gear their characters for obvious reasons- to get "the correct gear" means cramming together players who can handle Cosmics- whether that be a skill matter or a gear matter or a build matter or an issue of underperforming ATs or otherwise- and players who can't. And that means the latter dragging down the former, since Cosmics (as poorly designed as they are at a fundamental level, especially compared to Lair bosses like those of the aforementioned) are often a matter of "just one or two people performing too poorly or intentionally trolling screws it up for an entire zone of 35 people for hours on end."

Honestly, if Cosmics were some form of queued content with a higher player requirement than Alerts (similar to Rampages) or were locational repeatable instanced mission areas similar to Lairs, then this wouldn't be half the issue it is, but we won't ever see Cosmics changed in that manner since the purpose of Cosmics is to try and bludgeon together two halves of a playerbase that aren't meant to be bludgeoned together, at consistent and forced intervals, to... what, look good for whatever charts the corporate higher-ups are looking at?

... I'm genuinely of the mind that we- the whole game itself, really- would be better if Lair currency rewards were buffed, GCR was sprinkled in small amounts into solo content, and Cosmics were completely removed, at least in their current form.

Unknown · October 24

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Problem with GCR and endgame content.

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