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Stagnation is a Terrible Thing.
tenthyr
Posts: 11 Arc User
Let's start off with something: This is not a 'Wah Wah Quitting QQ' (And that's the technical term) post. This is a post about my observations, And I hope they are seen and used constructively.
Now for the plain truth: The game is stagnant. Nothing is progressing, there is nothing new, nothing to grip people or challenge them? What is my reasoning, you may well be asking. Well, Vehicles. Vehicles are an amazing idea, that could have been very, very fun. But they are not. This is nothing to do with the system, but the content. A single mission where Vehicles are relevant? How would that engage anyone for more than five minutes? Now. If there was a new zone, and I know this is asking a lot, with missions and story-lines a a heck of a lot of vehicular content, it would have been fabulous.
Moving on to something else now- Difficulty. The game is too easy in PvE, and this is just obvious now, especially after On Alert. The players can trounce everything but Legendary with absurd ease. Should we nerf the players? Of course not, because that would be very, very boring. The problem here is the Mobs themselves: easy, weak, and very basic to fight. The possible solution, Mobs with more health, more damage potential, and most important of all- Variety. Different mob types with strong buff and debuffs, forcing strategic killing and fighting. Look at CoX enemy groups. Lots and lots of different mobs with a plethora of debuffs and buffs at their disposal. This is a standard I hope can be strived for, otherwise content becomes very old, very quickly. Gravitar was such a FANTASTIC step in the right direction, I cannot express this enough. A much more difficult fight with abilities that forced you to play differently. People found it hard at first, and then they learned! And bloody heck, I enjoyed learning.
But this comes down to a much deeper issue, that isn't even visible in the game: Devs. There is such a poor focus on CO now (EDIT: I've been reliably informed that only 2 dev's actually work on CO currently, and thats... Well, not enough. Don't make me sadface here guys!) And with CoX sunsetting in a few days time. Its on PWE and Cryptic to capitalize. Hard. More dev's working on more meaningful, difficult content. Crank out a new zone! Make mob groups hard to fight!
Do this because there's something worse than a hard game, and that's a stagnant game. A game where players bleed away because they have no reason to stay.
(And as a final note. These are my observations, my OPINIONS. I am not representing the playerbase, I'm representing myself. I don't mean to make generalizations of us players. But if you agree with me, feel free to post. If you don't, post too! Just try to keep it constructive guys. I love me constructive chatz, Me does.)
Now for the plain truth: The game is stagnant. Nothing is progressing, there is nothing new, nothing to grip people or challenge them? What is my reasoning, you may well be asking. Well, Vehicles. Vehicles are an amazing idea, that could have been very, very fun. But they are not. This is nothing to do with the system, but the content. A single mission where Vehicles are relevant? How would that engage anyone for more than five minutes? Now. If there was a new zone, and I know this is asking a lot, with missions and story-lines a a heck of a lot of vehicular content, it would have been fabulous.
Moving on to something else now- Difficulty. The game is too easy in PvE, and this is just obvious now, especially after On Alert. The players can trounce everything but Legendary with absurd ease. Should we nerf the players? Of course not, because that would be very, very boring. The problem here is the Mobs themselves: easy, weak, and very basic to fight. The possible solution, Mobs with more health, more damage potential, and most important of all- Variety. Different mob types with strong buff and debuffs, forcing strategic killing and fighting. Look at CoX enemy groups. Lots and lots of different mobs with a plethora of debuffs and buffs at their disposal. This is a standard I hope can be strived for, otherwise content becomes very old, very quickly. Gravitar was such a FANTASTIC step in the right direction, I cannot express this enough. A much more difficult fight with abilities that forced you to play differently. People found it hard at first, and then they learned! And bloody heck, I enjoyed learning.
But this comes down to a much deeper issue, that isn't even visible in the game: Devs. There is such a poor focus on CO now (EDIT: I've been reliably informed that only 2 dev's actually work on CO currently, and thats... Well, not enough. Don't make me sadface here guys!) And with CoX sunsetting in a few days time. Its on PWE and Cryptic to capitalize. Hard. More dev's working on more meaningful, difficult content. Crank out a new zone! Make mob groups hard to fight!
Do this because there's something worse than a hard game, and that's a stagnant game. A game where players bleed away because they have no reason to stay.
(And as a final note. These are my observations, my OPINIONS. I am not representing the playerbase, I'm representing myself. I don't mean to make generalizations of us players. But if you agree with me, feel free to post. If you don't, post too! Just try to keep it constructive guys. I love me constructive chatz, Me does.)
Post edited by tenthyr on
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Just to comment on the minion thing, especially the weak ones. Not to burst your bubble, but alot of them the bar is set low to make up for people that...dont min max. I know right...how can you play this game without min maxing.
Changing the difficulty to reduce stagnancy is about as effective as final fantasy reskinning a bombchu green to signify a "new monster" Its the same monster....just reskinned.
HEY! Stop looking through my eyes! RUDE MUCH!:mad:
In all seriousness though, it's sad how painfully obvious this has become to the public.
Have you ever thought that maybe we could have both?:eek:
All they would need to do is add on 1 or 2 more difficulty levels after Elite for the min/maxing crowd to enjoy while the casuals are left enjoying their normal difficulty. :rolleyes:
We need more varying aspects of challenge other than simply just pounding at a boss villain until their health get down to zero while the player just heals and buffs themselves to prevent getting defeated. Maybe offer certain obstacles during the boss fight that forces the player to rely solely on their reflexes to overcome them. Two examples I can think of are Gravitar's bubbles (if they actually get fixed) and the Hi Pan alert with the where you had to stay away from Yin Yang's black portion. Add more special unorthodox conditions that have to be overcomed during the boss fight so that the fight can continue (like Shadow Destroyer's orbs). Maybe add a time limit to certain objectives that have to be completed in a lair instance so that the team and proceed on to the boss.
Above all else, it's about time we get a new AP/Lair/Comic series/Zone. There shouldn't just be a focus on bringing new products to the cash shop.
Things will stay as they are only as long as our Z-Store keeps generating cash for Neverwint-- I mean, future enhancements.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
lol if that's really what happened then Cryptic should opensource the CO engine already- (got shot)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
...the ultimate Contrast Moe (or not).
I always figured they saw it as the annoying small dog that came with the new girlfriend.
Anyway, the mobs are cannon fodder to kill on your way to your destination. They don't need buffing. What they need is to be taken off the map and put in instances or in specific locations where they can give you more trouble without putting lowbies at risk.
Wait? Whaaaa..?
Nice way to start off the thread. Snark.
Well done.
--Part 1: Spells and Coin (NW-DHM3XQVQK)
--Part 2: A Blind Eye (NW-DI3QTHZGJ)
--Part 3: Dodo's Dinner (NW-DHPA8O253)
-One Shots
--The Wizard of Eldeur (NW-DRKQNE4S7)
Whiteout was actually not bad at all. Why we haven't seen any of this is beyond me.
It still slightly irks me that the 'Victorian-Era Content' was not only dropped without letting the community know after it'd been hyped up in the UNTIL report... but that the stuff was used for another game. PWE is following the model of Chinese/South Korean gaming- 'Squeeze it for what you can, let it die, make new game, rinse and repeat'.
I'm being as fair as I can when I say this:
All it would take is one new MMORPG to come along and provide a character creator as awesome as CO's, a decent RP community, and functioning game content and CO is DEAD. I don't care how much people like super heroes- CO will just lay writhing with a few new costume pieces, gamble bags/boxes, and pay-for-five-minutes-of-fun content that get lazier and lazier each time.
Time for the boys to get their act together. I'm not blaming our Devs. It's PWE calling these shots and I hold them accountable for CO's failure.
It's sad how they do things like this, it's too bad they don't keep resources in where it was earned, but why would they do this? Governments do this BS too, taking money out of the funds from coffers and use it for something else, then the coffers that money was raised for needs to raise their price in order to make it back to do "maintenance" but then they take that money as well.
It's just like CO. All the money gained seems to go to Never-pays-for-itself-Winter Nights, then they squeeze more money from us, and it goes to Neverwinter as well.
It's more about getting in and fighting stuff with lots of flair and pizzazz, than deep, meaty storytelling and character development.
Personally, I do miss the latter, but admit to liking some aspects of the former as well...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
penthouse jet battle, we had a couple of smack the new loitering mobs around events,
we have the vehicles, and the sky battle, the alerts, and the rampage.
Hate when people say there is no new content.
Its like they have a buffet in front of them and say "There's nothing to eat"
Sure its mostly the same old slop day after day but the slop bucket gets a little bit deeper every month or two.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Content in MMOs means things to do, so costumes, powers and vehicles, while new additions are NOT content, plain and simple.
A handful of temporary events, while yes they are content, are very minimal and as mentioned temporary.
The alerts and ONE rampage, again strictly yes they are content, but again very minimal and boring as hell, and actually HURT existing content by steering new players away from it!
New content, REAL new content is new permenant missions/zones etc. The adventure packs and comic series are the best new content they added, real substance and long involvment, but even that isnt much for the time the game has been out, and was a long time ago.
CoX, the game with the closest relevance to Champions, had more actual content at launch than champions has now. They also added new content in regular updates (around 20 in all) PLUS had not 1 but 2 expansions with as much content in them as was launched with the game! By the time CoX had been here as long as champions has it had around 3 times the content we have here!
New Powers: I will give that to you. Maybe not whole new power sets, but we had the Night Avenger. Not content- this is something to play the content with.
Loitering Mob Events: This is not content. This is moving one mob type into an environment, adding some code to make them adjust to the level of those fighting them, and giving the player a grab bag. All in all, this is a 'dollar's worth' of gameplay at best.
Penthouse Jet battle: Gone in two weeks. Not content.
Destroid Invasion: Was broken. Lasted all of a week before it went away. Not content.
Sky Battle: A five minute battle (that no one ever seems to be playing, as of... all night tonight for me) is not content. It's a dressed-up alert.
Vehicles: I've seen maybe ONE person pleased with their execution. So far, they aren't worth $15. Not content- these are become devices with mod drops all up in the current drop tables.
Rampage Alert: Again, five minutes of fighting one thing is not content- especially one as ludicrous as this one. Say what you want, but the random killshot blasts are a bit stupid.
We are at a buffet. But the same food has been sitting there for months. Giving us a new fork, moving the sesame chicken to a different slot, bringing me one-dollar mystery plates (that could be either a steak or a cat turd), refusing to change out spoiled or undercooked food, and offering me a shinier plate for $15 more is not a good business practice for this buffet.
This is not a very constuctive response. No constuctive imput of any kind makes me a sad panda. Excpet that I'm not a panda, I am a human.
But if you aren't careful you might damage my hope of humanity so much so that I wish I was a lazy enviromentally threatened large mammal. This would be a shame. I like people clothes.
Then my advice is to not reflect on the amount of constructive responses we have received from the devs.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
This game, is the closest to continue my superheroing...
I have already done every single mission and content that exists on this game, in my first month. I want more, the foundry, new areas, new missions.
In City of Heroes, after going free to play, we were getting MORE content compared to the time before it, we got some new areas (First Ward, Night Ward, Revamped Dark Astoria). Each new issue also added new story arcs at mid level, we were having the "Signature story arcs" each month, and they were working on a new area for issue 25 (The game was closed just weeks before Issue 24 came live).
We were getting new powersets, new costumes and other goodies for the market. The game was kept alive and improving each month... and it had over 8 years. This game is younger and seems abandoned.
This game has a LOT of potential, a lot of good things... but the stagnation is really damaging, and one of the main reasons some friends from CoH prefer to go to The Secret World rather than come here, cause that game is getting content updates.
I'm not opposed to vehicles (need more content for those, seriously) or new costumes, and even lockboxes... but that is just shiny, right now. You can still do that while working on giving the players "THE MEAT". That is, giving us storylines, new areas, new powersets (Staff fighting? Plant control?).
I am willing to spend Z on a new area with good storytelling, I want the Foundry so we as players can create more content, so the game will have a new breath of life.
Champions is a lot of great potential... now... capitalize on that potential... make it happen instead of just sit there.
Seriously, Trailturtle, Lodgar, Gentlemancrush, and any other Dev, if this is the case please talk to the PWE people, talk to the head of Cryptic, give us the players that love CO what they need to make more content for this game. Outsource content design to "us", those of us that have a story to tell set in the Champs universe.
Open the sorce code to the modding community here, I'm not talking about the foundry either. GIVE "US" the ability to make content for this game. If there are really only 2 people working on this game, allow "US" to help. The two devs left can edit anything we send you before it hits live.
There is soooo much history in the Champs Universe that CO hasn't even touched, allow us to help it get explored.
If CO were to add stuff, I mean, zones, powersets, storylines, and other things, I'll happily turn the money-spigot on. I'm already a life-time member on STO. But with CO, when my 3-month lapses, I'll probably just be a freebie player grinding Q and making you a total of $0 on CO after that.
BUT I WANT TO GIVE YOU MY MONEY! GIVE ME A GOOD REASON TO GIVE YOU MY MONEY!
Now, as I have said previously, what we got might not be content you or I are particularly interested in, but it's there. Just because you don't like moo shu pork and roasted chitlins doesn't mean they weren't added to the buffet, you know?
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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You can argue this little point all you want. All we've seemed to get was the one carrier mission and they took everything else down. An event is not content- especially when one of them had a catastrophic, game-breaking bug.
After one whole year the only permanent addition to this game was the carrier mission. One mission. And that's an Alert, which means it's just some ADHD instant gratification.
So back to the buffet:
It doesn't matter how we feel about moo shu pork and roasted chitlins when they brought them out for two minutes and took them away. The chitlins gave people food poisoning and the pork just never came back.
I don't make excuses for businesses, Jon. Not Cryptic, not Marvel, not Smith & Wesson, not Gillette. I won't make an excuse for a business I don't work for, and you'll have to write me a check long before I do. Do I hate the people working there? No. This is not personal. But when you are a business your customers hold you accountable. Don't tell me the Devs 'did what they could' or that they 'weren't sure what we wanted'. These men make their living developing MMORPG's. They aren't brand new and they aren't retarded. It was quite clear what everyone wanted, and I don't think 'Alerts' or anything fitting that description came up.
You know what the sad thing is? I almost said "Cryptic isn't seeing a dime of my money until they make something worth spending it on". Then I remembered how I've been not spending anything for months, so...
Face it, we've seen nothing from the Devs indicating effort toward this game. Wizards of the Coast and CBS officially have all your Developers and the Chinese Overlords at PWE give as much a damn about your little Superhero game over here as you do the price of rice over there- so I guess it's Karma.
There's been little or no indication that investment in systems, retail expansions, powers, costumes, content updates, etc. leads to more subscribers in the superhero MMO niche. I'm feeling lazy, but there are charts kicking around the CoH forums that show a steady downward trend (with short-lived upward ticks with retail expansions) in that game's subs since release.
And, not to put too fine a point on it, CoH had a pretty stellar run of updates.
But that run of updates, AT BEST, kept people's interest.
Honestly, folks, is there anything short of handing cash money to players that will bring in an influx of players large enough to support a 20-person dev team? That can be done with a 3 or 4 person dev team?*
I don't think so -- the UGC system at CoH didn't cause a surge in subs (IIRC, the issue that introduced UGC didn't even cause an upward bump in numbers), so I wouldn't hold out for Foundry.
New content? Unless you're specifically looking for it, you're unlikely to even find out about new things going on at CO unless you look at CO's web site itself -- this game is so minor that most gaming sites don't bother mentioning the game anymore. That's not a way to grab new players' attention.
No, the best way to grab a new user's attention is, I think, through positive word of mouth. And that's not going to happen while the game wallows in weak updates, almost non-existent dev interaction, and *****y QA. Fixing those problems? That would require, I believe, a pretty significant reinvestment with little or no chance of return.
* Many people work under the misconception that adding bodies to a project will make it move forward faster. This is generally only true in the long term -- in the short term, it takes months [in law, it takes at least 1 year, and generally 2, for a new lawyer to stop being a financial drain, for a benchmark] of training on new systems, new software, and new procedures before fresh hires stop being a drain on both money and, more crucially, other people's time. If the devs had hired 4 new devs (tripling the supposed dev team), NOTHING would happen for weeks as the current devs juggle putting out fires with training and meetings. After that, the new hires would have to supervised, closely. And ... during the time of nothing happening, the current players would be PISSED. It's a very, very tough situation.
That could be a nice change, show up there like "same old same old, i amd going to kick some butOH MY GOSH A TANK!"
might add some challenge, and for those without Min maxed characters, they could get a buddy. It is a MMO after all.
Ayup.
Once you ramp down a team, building it back up takes between six months and a year before the new hires become useful. This is why you only ramp down a team when they are done with the project; it is painfully expensive to rebuild.
Cryptic is 'done' with CO. This isn't going to change. I sincerely doubt they can afford to change it even if they wanted to.
We simply aren't profitable enough.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you aren't paying for it, you aren't the customer; you are the product being sold.
Dollar, dollar, bill, yo. Cash rules everything around you and me.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Anyone else can confirm this point?
I disagree. Many (most ?) of the posts on the subject, that Ive seen, have agreed as to what that meant.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
There's actually four. Caffeteria lady and janitor.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Personally I think that anyway. The whole update just made it unnecessary to use over 90% of the game's content.
Caliga's PRIMUS Database! --XXX--The Caliga Build: Threatening Haymakers! --XXX-- Caliga and Conquer fanart!
Its a much more involved issue than that. On Alert added some new stuff to the game, which was nice. But afterwards no new story or major mission content came out. It was a noticeable void.
Difficulty does not make a good game.
In fact, it tends to kill games for the wide majority, especially when the game its attached to has design issues to begin with. A rather good example of this can be seen with the old Silver Surfer game on the NES, which is generally considered a game that would have gone down as a classic had it not been so horrifically, brokenly punishing to the player, driving a majority of the people who WOULD have enjoyed it away.
Another example that should speak volumes: The Japanese version of Gradius 3 was actually pulled from Arcades because it was considered far, far too hard. Scratch your head about that for a second: A game type that historically was meant to eat your quarters through insane difficulty was actually pulled and replaced with a toned down version because it was too difficult.
I think you really need to sit down and take a look at Gravitar's queue compared to every other queue in the game, and consider the fact when you do get a quick pop you usually see the same faces over and over, and they're also the only ones not dieing constantly. Fact is, difficult content isn't favored by the wallet holding majority, and to make a difficult game that appeals to the masses is an incredibly tough task that becomes progressively harder the longer you expect your game to hold their attention.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
The void was already there, they threw the Alerts to hide it and all the CO fanboys scream hysterically how awesome this new content was. *rolls eyes*
I can see your point, but you kind of missed mine. I don't just want harder fights, because they are far, far too easy as they are now. I want them to require a certain level of thought. A game where every single fight is exactly the same becomes very boring, very, very quickly. Do I expect more difficult mobs to be a popular addition? No. Then again, I would rather these higher difficulty mobs placed above the normal difficulty. Difficulty settings have never mattered, and that really needs to change.
Call me jaded and cynical, but I believe that by the point that someone is cashing a pay check as a game developer, they should be familiar with basic concepts such as "content". If they need the players to tell them what it is, then fire them and start hiring us.
Considering this team has proven time and time again that it's going to continue to take the easy route, I find it surprising that there are still people who scream in terror at the mere mention of more challenging content.
And why does it seem that anytime you give an idea of what challenging content is, those same people immediately claim that there's nothing challenging whatsoever about that content, but continue to aggressively fight against any possibility that that supposedly unchallenging content might be implemented...
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
I didn't miss it. You're missing how big the problem with difficulty is.
I'm gonna repeat myself here, since you didn't get it: Difficult games are hard to make. Even if you manage to not drive off half your potential customers in the process of making your game hard (See: Devil May Cry as a modern example of "good but hard") you're still likely to see lesser returns for your effort than had you not made the game more difficult at all, unless there is the ability to turn the difficulty way down without losing anything in the process.
Take a look at CO a moment, its combat system, build system and otherwise. Look at some of our older fights, like the Vikorin fight how it was originally intended to operate, as well as newer ones like Gravitar. You should see that CO is not a good platform for difficulty. Anything that takes "greater reflexes" is hampered by laggy combat and auto-hit attacks. Anything that takes "greater thought" usually loses its hook in a group that has done it a few times. All of it is either pointless or over punishing due to the extremely widely varying performance between ATs, concept Freeforms and optimized Freeforms.
In order to fix the above, as well as other numerous things mentioned (such as difficulty settings having a more widespread effect), parts of CO would have to be altered from the ground up. It would take excessive amounts of developer time and effort. And all for what? Something that most of your players are going to thumb their nose at to begin with.
Difficulty is not CO's problem. Most gamers these days don't even expect a game to be hard, or to have to learn any special tricks, and many are actually driven away the moment they're faced with something that might require a bit of practice (R.I.P. SMNC, the best MOBA FPSer no one loves). Fact is, most people care about bloom more than they do difficulty, let alone things like story and game mechanics.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
Whenever difficulty is discussed on these forums, the "anti-difficulty" crowd always assumes that the conversation is about making every part of the game more difficult, as if someone somewhere ( maybe a man made of straw ) is trying to force them out of the game by making it so difficult that it would be unplayable for them.
When in fact, it's never been about that.
But hey, let's go back a few months in time and have this whole conversation again, lol, did someone mention stagnation?
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
This is also a "straw man" as people are so fond of abuse here on the forums. Forgetting that the idea of a straw man argument is a fallacy to begin with, I'd suggest you stop trying to say other people are having one when you yourself are guilty of it.
In case you didn't think things through, I'll spell it out for you: Limited resources means CO can't afford to have content dedicated to different levels of difficulty. People need to stop thinking in terms of what other, larger games have to work with. Especially when the problem is greatly amplified by all sorts of other issues, including the fact the game is Freeform and what challenges someone with an AT or concept Freeform is going to be an absolute cakewalk to an optimized character. Oh, and don't forget the vocal minority that insists anything that's hard also has better or exclusive rewards.
So to put it bluntly, you're straw manning by posing the valid argument of limited resources to be spread over a very wide area as a straw man. The basis of this argument exists, and is very much valid, someone has to win and someone has to lose as proven by the fact that most of the content we've gotten lately has fallen into the "too hard" category for most people.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
sorry for such a long quote, but this is really the core of the issue with Champs, what baroness stated is very true, i started CoH when issue 10 was just about to get there, so i kinda started during the "meh" period, but every issue after that even before Play4Free launched, we constantly had new crap coming to an already very massive/deep game that had so much content, and once they switched to the PFF model, that same continual output of new stuff got even BETTER
CO could be like that, but it needs devs to work on content for that, and from what i hear, it doesnt have many devs. CO is my last refuge for my Superhero MMO fix, but it needs major improvement, theres a reason i wasnt here for the majority of the last 2 years, i tried CO in the beta and despite being graphically inferior to a decent extent, CoH just blew it out of the water, i did eventually buy a Lifetime Sub bacvk in 2010 or early 2011, but even at that point CO wasnt enough to make me stay, so i went back to CoH
but now CoH is in its dying moments thanks to a greedy korean company thats produced AND shut down more games in the last 6 or 7 years than any MMO company ive ever seen, and i can only pray that with time, CO gets better and can fill that void in my heart so to speak, CoH didnt deserve this fate but the corporate higher-ups at NC dont give a damn about the people that fund their sallaries, theyve also proven their not above illegal means to get a game shutdown just because its not meeting their initial suspected goals of WoWarcrap-like profits, but CoH was one of the few NCSoft games that actually far surpassed its original profit expectation, and the whole reason we were told by NC as to why its getting shutdown is "it no longer fits with company direction" which sounds pretty shady and smells of Koreans that just dont wanna support their Western games if those games arent also big in Asia/Korea
Oh you CO apologists. :rolleyes:
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
I'm not a CO apologist. That's just the facts. If anything, I'm a PWE hater, since they're the reason things are the way they are.
Atari and PWE both have one thing in common: A want to rake in quick cash without doing anything on their end. That's not how things work, unless you're either playing dirty or really, really lucky. The cold hard reality of things is that you have to spend some combination of time, effort and money to make money, which is why every John Doe on the street with a brilliant idea isn't the next millionaire.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
Make regular missions more rewarding and attractive - if that means giving them rewards per unit time on par with alerts, then so be it.
If you were to limit new content to using existing in-game elements, the devs could still make some great mission arcs; We could find out what happened to Poe after he fled the Westside Culmination. We could see the aftermath of Whiteout. What about an arc addressing the recovery efforts of the rescued Qliphoth survivors from Aftershock? Maybe we could revisit Multifaria and see if Dr. Destroyer has actually helped with the rebuild or used the portal to return to our dimension.
You don't need new assets to create worthwhile new content, and if I, an unspectacular writer, can come up with ideas, then so can the devs...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
Funny how someone has the audacity to criticize others about using logical fallacies when that someone is repeatedly guilty of ad hominem.
Also, not that I'm expecting any sort of reasonable or civil response (if at all), but I'd like to see some sort of survey or poll suggesting that the majority of players (that's what you meant by "most" isn't it?) find the recent content we've gotten lately as being "too hard". And no, an instance of people complaining about it on zone chat during doesn't mean it's indicative of general opinion.
NO. JUST NO.
I saw "monster inflation" turn Anarchy Online into a borefest where no one could solo -at all- unless you were a master in twinking your character and every single mob took at least 20 seconds to die. Many people here have jobs, families, and otherwise things to do other than farming for equipment for days on end just to be able to -enjoy- the game; those same people are the ones with actual disposable income, and they need to be able to play at their own pace.
I actually like the idea of a higher difficulty meaning a higher enemy population. It can help make the higher difficulty settings mean something significant other than just mobs with slightly higher-resistance and more health.
Speaking of logical fallacies...
Don't like that your dirty laundry is hanging in the breeze for everyone to see? No problem! Just ramble some latin nonsense and all your problems go away!
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
Bioshrike: You win. I want to play your game.
Xaogarrent: Can we compare CO to games with very similiar or lesser resources who have done more on a pretty regular basis then?
Foxyperson: Could you please ellaborate on this? I played AO for a very very long time and do not, specifically, understand your post.
Overall: I know this isn't popular but I honestly do believe that the difficulty sliders are the solution to alot of this problem. If you look in Serpent Lantern(yes, it's boring I know) and Therakiel's Temple there are examples of the Mob AI performing differently based on Elite. Now these are rare...but it's there to build upon IMO. So, to use an old phrase,"We have the technology..."
Along with this I will agree with what some people have hinted at that a large portion of this game must find it too difficult. Now this has nothing to do with people complaining on the forums or in zonechat but look at On Alert. Most people on the forums and ingame I talk with have all but accepted that if you wish to accomplish anything meaningful in On Alert you must be able to carry the weaker players. In many cases you should expect that it's your job to all but solo the alert. This, in and of itself, demonstrates to me that not everyone in this game finds it as "easy" as alot of people find it(myself included). Before someone says it, let's be perfectly clear here, I am not an elitist. I am simply an effective player. There are many people on these forums, my friends list, private channels, and just normal gaming activities that I encounter who dwarf most of my toons easily. I play "Effective Concept Toons" which means I play concept...but I just don't believe that means I automatically have to suck for that decision. So, IMO, difficulty sliders would allow people who want more challenge(and possibly better drop rates on some of the more annoying things) to get what they want without faceplanting those who can't handle normal repeatedly.
Also, one thing I don't see mentioned enough for my own tastes is that while On Alert did add things....those things came at a very large cost. Sure, most players now skip the missions and such because Smashing is easier(and in some cases because there are people there to carry them) but something also must be said about the lack of meaningful rewards, the removal of 'interesting items'(See: Click Upgrades), the reintroduction of alot of the lost items as poorly thought out copy/paste devices which allow for multiple use of things that were clearly designed originally to be unique, and how things like these items and the old Crafted unlocks were removed from the game...but Cryptic is more than willing to sell them to those who missed out.
Now don't get me wrong here. I'm not against profit or buying things. I am, however, against things being removed from the game and then sold back to the players who might have missed out or were not lucky enough to obtain them in the 1st place. My buying history from the C-Strore shows that I will buy what I like...and ignore what I do not like. I bought a travel power last night as a matter of a fact and, for contrast, I will never buy the emblem kits because I find them to be, IMO, very ugly and not of the same level of quality as those which were originally given to the players for free. But, seriously, I do know people(myself included) who would be running more of the various bits of content in this game if the new "Legacy Devices" were returned to the mobs that used to have them(if it was a mission reward...just add it to the mob drop tables) as an alternate means of obtaining them. In alot of "Cash Shop" games it's about those who have time and those who have money and do not have time so let those who don't have the time gamble and those who are willing to grind...do the grind.
In Closing, I find myself agreeing with Smoo and alot of the others. We've had alot of these conversations before. For the vets alot of this isn't new. For the CoX Refugees I'm as suprised as you might be that this particular house wasn't polished more just for your arrival and the potential profits that could have generated. I find TrailTurtle to be the best person Cryptic has ever put in his particular position by a country mile but even with him the communication isn't quite there(which isn't his fault IMO) so I keep asking myself,"Why do we even bother with these conversations?" Are the doomspeakers right? Is this the new holding pattern for the future of CO? Is expecting anything of real meat and value too much to ask for? Are the diehards holding onto faith that expired years ago? Like many people I see the potential...but I also see the "Soon(tm)" and what that has delivered to us. At what point in this game does faith and hope turn into wasted time and delusion? It's something I find myself thinking about when I log in now alot over the last few months...and I've been Gold since September 4th 2009(had an error getting my game copy for launch but I was in the beta).
Ok, I suck at "briefly" apparently so I'll stop now and let the next person have their go at this....for whatever it's worth...if anything. <shrugs>
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer