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Did Alerts Ruin This Game?
xgco
Posts: 94 Arc User
So hey there Champions, long time player more recently more of a complainer. I'm going to make this short and to the point. "Did Alerts Ruin This Game or Am I Being Silly?"
Here is why I think it did:
Other questions Alerts bring up:
There is only so many times I can beat Mindslayer before I have to wonder why she keeps going after City Hall or that place where the mayor gives his speech. Why won't she change her plan of attack? Because bit sized fun is all we get nowadays and I can't help but feel as if the game will just die and won't be the player's fault but all the crud that the game has been put through since before launch until now.
Am I wrong?
/rant
Here is why I think it did:
- All new content seems to be related to Alert's in some way.
- With Alerts you can level from 1 - 40 without leaving Millenium City.
- We've gone from being solo players who could team to being forced to team together.
- Alert's aren't even all that varied just the same lather rinse repeat game we've been playing but in bite sized bits.
Other questions Alerts bring up:
- Why are Alert's level 30?
- Why isn't there a level requirement?
- Why are all default Nemesis in Nemesis Alerts using the same powerset?
There is only so many times I can beat Mindslayer before I have to wonder why she keeps going after City Hall or that place where the mayor gives his speech. Why won't she change her plan of attack? Because bit sized fun is all we get nowadays and I can't help but feel as if the game will just die and won't be the player's fault but all the crud that the game has been put through since before launch until now.
Am I wrong?
/rant
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There needs to be an adjustment for mission rewards so that they're somewhat on par with alert rewards. They should include recognition and questionite rewards so that there's actually a practical reason for investing time and effort in doing them other than for the sake of completion and exploration.
I know some people like Alerts. But frankly I have no interest to come back to this game to play them (I admit to playing Smashes to speed up leveling so I can skip certain parts I don't feel like playing at the moment and/or to avoid getting a character stuck at lower levels then loose interest on them way before I can get them near 40, but that's it--and only because I don't have any fresh and/or repeatable content to keep me going). I'll be back IF/When two things happen:
1) The game receives a substantial addition of non-Alert content.
2) The game gains a clear sense of direction, rather than just devs shooting at the next random idea that occurs to them.
Being able to go to 40 on alerts isn't a problem, but smash alerts give too much exp and encourage grinding.
No one is being forced to team. Teaming has been one of COs major weaknesses and alerts helped with that to some extent. However, i would say that alerts don't allow teams to stay together long enough to "jell".
Alerts are repetitive but again, small content is all the small dev team can afford to make. Also repetition of content is a major element in all MMOs.
Overall, i would say Alerts are fine, but the rewards system they have is lopsided towards smash alerts, and said smash alerts discourage the other modes of play available. They also make getting to 40 too fast leading to faster burnout.
Also, there should be a lv requirement on alerts, but that has been said before.
PVP is starving without rewards
1. Please give us Daily PVP missions that reward Questionite.
2. Please give us an exchange rate between Acclaim and Recognition so that PVP has access to all "On Alert" PVE rewards.
1) The very best the remaining Devs. can do with a very small neitch game and we should all shut up and just be glad the servers are up, at least until the Global Economy turns around and people have the money to blow on toys again.
2) The Powers That Be simply could care less about this property and are trying to get as much profit as possible with as little capital investment as possible with no thought as to future earnings or the long-term health of the property.
Personally, despite all the bile and bombast on the forums of late, I think scenario one is the more likely of the two.
This will never stop me from complaining, of course, and like just about everyone else, I think those scarce resources have been dreadfully misspent. The fact that they did so little to attract the City of Heroes Alumni was a case of truly epic ball droppage. It could have meant a whole new, brighter future for this game and they blew it.
'Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.' Terry Pratchet The Thief Of Time
QFT. The alerts allow long time vets who have done the missions so many times that they are bored to skip that and use alerts to level. Having said that, to encourage more players to team up and play content, one good way is to multiple XP gained with number of players in the team (wonder if that will lead to multiboxing).
This. ^
There are only so many Alerts per day that I'm capable of doing (unless I've got a couple of energy drinks to keep my pupils wide :biggrin:)
I, personally, feel that the XP gained from alerts should be reduced by about 50%. It would then become less than mission reward XP but with XP boosters it would still be a viable way for people to level up. Yes it would take longer but it would urge these newer players to actually play some of the other content the game has to offer.
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I'll agree with this.
I like alerts personally. It would be nice to have some things in addition to them, but alerts themselves were not a bad addition; I'm not sure the addition of a new zone or two would have had the positive effect on this game that alerts did. I guess, in addition to what I have said allready, I would like to additionally state that any addition to the game is a good addition, especially when you add that any addition currently is countering the subtractions of content that have happened.
Addition. :cool:
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The real proplem in my opinion is, that there simply was NO new content after on alert.
They didn't even finished the second rampage alert.
And no .. Vehicles and Lockboxes are no content for me. And remove crafting to sell the stuff
now via the Drifter Store is also no new content .. its removal of content.
And we didn't even got new costumes for 5-6 ? months.
^This.
No, alerts didn't ruin the game. A lot of the complaints (in this thread and elsewhere) center around what people can choose to do. Alerts are an option. If people want to do them and that's what keeps them playing, so be it. If people don't want to do them that's their option too. All the talk about reducing this or that, removing this or that, or changing this or that solely because you don't like the idea of it and feel other people shouldn't have the option (because face it, you and I know you can just ignore that content and play whatever content you want to play without being affected by anyone doing alerts or not doing alerts) is bordering on selfish IMO.
People can level fast by alerts. So what, let them. Their choice. Sometimes I level by alerts, sometimes I play missions, sometimes I do a combination of the two, sometimes I just RP, sometimes I just log in to chat. These are all options. In this example the choices are all mine and none of them would affect anyone here's play experience.
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I've seen some real wisdom in this thread. I agree with sigmaseven0's posit that Alerts "the alerts system allowed the devs a vehicle to deliver content packages small enough that they could afford under their small budget." I think the devs are doing the best they can with what resources they've been given.
It's the lack of consistent and substantial new content that makes the game easier to "fade away" for players.
VARIANT
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-Abraham Lincoln-
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This is precisely why I feel that Alerts have ruined the game (for me). To me, they're a reminder and an indicator that we're never going to see any "real" content added to this game, because the devs are going to continuously take the easy route out and make Alerts instead since...
...so they have no incentive to try harder and give us some "real", elaborate and fully fleshed out content, but give us a single small map with a bunch of random enemies to tank and spank instead. And while...
...this^ is definitely the ultimate truth, Alerts (along with other things, like lockboxes and cheap copout chat ban by committee automated moderation systems) are only going to facilitate that continues to be a reality.
100% this^.
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They did fit them in.
*points to the list of unfinished/abandoned projects*
See, they're right over there.
Me too. I was actually looking forward to some of those changes.
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I highly doubt that if alerts hadn't been implemented that we would be swimming waist deep in new zones and adventure packs. I think the realistic alternative is that we would have gotten nothing besides vehicles.
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One of the few things that was fun to do at max level was to run the cosmics. Even if the rewards werent that great it was just fun to grab a bunch of friends and take them down. My SG did it regularly. Kigatilik was almost guaranteed to be up in at least one instance. Alerts crushed that. It's off putting to go into a zone and literally see no one.
A solution to this and also the problem with there not being a minimum level requirement for alerts (specifically Smash's) is to spread the alerts throughout the Zones. Divide them up by level and make it so that in order to queue for a certain level alert you have to be in a specific zone based on their already in place content levels. This increases your populations in all Zones, creates some diversity in the Alerts (I'd love to run some Smash's in Canada or MI and alot of the Villians wouldnt seem so out of place trying to kidnap the mayor). It also groups people in the same level range together and allows you to create alerts that arent just sidekicking everyone to 30. Hell maybe being in another zone other than MC would encourage people to run some of the missions there while they wait for an alert to pop. Plus you could have a Rampage alert for each zone using perhaps the already existing cosmics? More content with less actual deisgn and work. Seems like a pretty simple fix until you come up with something more substantial like a new zone or something.
Asking people to leave a zone isnt really all that much of hassle. Especially when you can get to any zone from the jet in MC. But keeping them all in one zone really makes the game seem much smaller than it already is.
Also make vehicles customizable appearance wise and create ones that don't fly.
Still, the SMASH alerts give way too much xp.
I would also like to see more alerts that are like full missions, like the Museum and Pyramid ones.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Alerts though incredibly boring after a while (IMHO) can give people some team content and be fun with friends-you are allowed to team up before hand and queue the team afterall.
I forgot to quote, but who ever said that the Custom Alerts should be place within the world--I very much agree. There could be a contact some where to give you the Night hawk mission chains, maybe add a couple more to flush out the story. I dont think it would take much to add to each to make them full mission chains...then again I am not a dev so who knows?
What do you guys want you are getting WEEKS of content right now!
Trolling is so edgy!
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And correct me if I am wrong: but cryptic has announced somethubg new coming every two WEEKS for the next two months.
I dont follow the discontent. Saying good things about Champions is frowned upon?
No, but being purposely obtuse is. You've been singing the same song since your little forum vacation years ago for saying this game didn't have a QA department. To me, every post like this from you since then sound like an abused spouse trying to convince everyone that your significant other ain't really that bad. It's the same formula every time.
This game has a QA department?
/ba dum tish
(sorry, couldn't help myself >.>)
Of course it does: http://co.perfectworld.com/news/?p=800331
*Waves hand* This is not the QA you're looking for
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Freeform Builds Directory (Last updated: 04/23/2016)
Serving since September, 2009 / 65 Characters, 63 Level 40's
Well played Sir, well played.
Next 4 weeks we get:
1 Instanced mission
1 Alert
Yep, that sure is a month of Content! YAY!
/sarcasim.
you forgot the last 4 weeks, we got :
1 costume piece (as long as you logged in and took 2 mins to click on an npc for the weekend it was available) !
Thats what I call a great 2 months!
But seriously the last real content we got was whiteout, that was 14 months ago!
Lockboxes on the other hand, add nothing to game play, and are obtrusive. A case might be made that lockboxes are ruining CO.
I been a long time leaving but I'm going to be a long time gone.
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STO lockboxes, on the other tentacle...
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I see the alerts kind of like CoH's mission Architect was when it came out. At first, everybody was using it, then the crowds started to fade. When people figured out how to use some bugged enemies for massive XP gains, it got a bit crowded again, but when the bug was fixed, the place faded to a ghost town. On our server (Protector), there was hardly ever a soul in the building.
I figure that sooner or later the fast ride to 40 on Alerts will be over, and you'll see the number of people in Alerts drop pretty fast. Now, if they stretched out the alerts to be more like "Featured Missions", and had a lot more in the rotation so we don't see the same things over and over it could have real staying power.
But as a gold player I still see FAR more good than bad in CO. The ability to create a character with any power combination is something I wanted from my first CoH character forward. The size of the zones, the comic-ish vibe... I dig it all. Yes, there could be more game content, but I'm happy what we have is cool for the most part. I do wish CO had the never -ending flow of new stuff like CoH did, but there are so many things I like better about CO that I never looked back when I left the City.
But I have to find something new to grind for. I finally have all the Gravitar costume parts, so now I'm looking for something else. Are there any auras other than the dark aura?
I am not particularly fond of the implementation of the alert system (I would rather that normal alerts be more involved...similar to the GRAB and Warlord alerts).
But, I do question some of your assertions:
1) "With Alerts you can level from 1 - 40 without leaving Millenium City."
But you do not have to. People who want to zone hop doing normal missions can. Those who prefer a more arcade style shoot em up play experience while chatting in zone have that as an option as well. If other people playing the game as they see fit, so long as it is not abusive, ruins the game for you then they may not be the problem.
2) "We've gone from being solo players who could team to being forced to team together."
There is a huge difference between choosing to participate in team content and being, "forced," to team together. Don't want to team ? Easy enough...don't play team content. Something on the order of 90% of the content of the game is readily soloable, and most of the remaining 10% can be soloed with a high end build.
All of that said, I agree that being leveled down to 30 was a poor design decision. Essentially what the devs are saying is that alerts are not meant to be played at level 40. Implementing a system years into the life of the game when many people have multiple max level characters (I dont particularly like alting and even I have 4 level 40's) and then telling those players that they are not allowed to play them at the earned level is a bad idea IMO.
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I wish it was already this way when I started playing.
I didn't have to know what Millennium City was, who The Champions or any other NPCs were. I could level to 40 in a matter of days with any haphazard build and discovered it was pointless to backtrack and do any of the story missions. I didn't have to bother about synergies instead of just point and shoot. I could do all the end game lairs once, not spend a single cent and leave the game in the span of a month.
Instead, I'm here, heavily invested in my alts. So familiar with the lore and power frameworks. Have attachments to friendships built over the years. Out of hundreds of dollars and still reluctant to leave the game.
I agree with this statement. I'm glad that they've given people more options. More options are always a plus in my book. But I don't want Cryptic to forget about other content as well, or other options (Foundry). I personally don't care for Alerts. But then again, I don't care for PUGs at all. Most of the time I find myself in a terrible group (not just with CO but all MMOs). The number one problem I've learned about CO, isn't that it's lacking group content, it's that people don't know how to play their characters in a group. Or there is lack of leadership or direction in a group most of the time. And actually I group more often with people looking for help in zone chat, than play Alerts.
You are right but, at least for the 1-40 without leaving MC assertion I did say you "can" not have to. I guess what I meant by that is between grinding through the mission arcs or alerts or maybe even adventure packs, alerts is far too attractive of an option to level up quickly. I had Frost Dude at lv 40 before Alerts came into the game. My second lv 40 was mostly through the mission arcs with only a bit of alert grinding at the end. #3 was 20 when I decided to just Alert grind her to 40 and #4 is 37 and been pure alerts. I guess my main point was that you can do it without leaving MC and I find that to be a problem, not that you have to.
As for my "forced to team" comment, all new content being introduced into the game recently requires us to team. Sky Command, Alerts, Rampage Alert, quite possibly the big event going on now. So if I want new stuff to do I better find a team or STFU and replay the same stuff over and over again. Again it's just how I see it.
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When Shadow Collossi still gave exp in resistance, i technically never had to leave MC to level up to 40 (i mentioned technically, since you did leave and at the same time you didn't leave MC in an odd way)
Which was why they got rid of Collosi XP.
That wasn't the point of my post. The point was that back then, people didn't have to leave MC to get to lvl 40 instead of going to other places doing content. Eventhough you had to be level 11 to do resistance, instead of now when you can start doing smash alerts if you skip the tutorial.
As regards to the 1-40 in MC, the reason I mentioned that you don't have to is that you can play the game how you wish. If you think that there is something wrong about leveling to 40 in MC then you can avoid that situation. Some other players choosing to play the game in a manner different from your preferred play style, so long as they are not being abusive, is not a problem.
One of the biggest problems in online games, that I have seen, is player group A calling others out as being a problem for not enjoying the game the way player group A does.
Close to 100% of the game is soloable. Adding a few bits of group specific content is reasonable IMO. I think the implementations has been less than stellar, but I don't think that its particularly unfair to those who prefer soloing for the game to be merely 90% soloable rather than 95%.
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Still, one has to wonder what makes Smash Alerts more worthy of farming your way to lv 40 than slugging your way through Collosi. And what changed for the devs since then that made speed leveling with Collosi "bad" back in those days, but doing the same with Smashes now "ok"? They're both equally "cheap" ways to get there IMO, and I found farming Collosi to be more fun sometimes as well (except for the part where that song would get stuck in my head after a couple of fights >.>).
I still find issue in the fact that one method of leveling and experiencing the game seems to get favored above the other--both, in terms of rewards as well as encouragement from the devs in the form of early notices to engage in them. And the one that gets favored is the one that trivializes the game world and the majority of the content in it the most, and requires the least amount of effort or knowledge of the game or the world from players.
Its far faster, immediate and easier to level through Alerts right now than it is to level through traditional world exploration content. And its very easy to loose track of where you'd be expected to go next in world content if you get caught up in Alerts unless you're experienced the world content often enough to already know it (which might not be the case with newer players).
Its one thing to provide options for different playstyles. Its another to favor the one that requires the least amount of work.
Real talk? I don't wanna do work when I'm playing video games.
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'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.