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The Future of Alerts
daisolaar
Posts: 28 Arc User
Since the advent of the Alert system, many, many players have made their opinions clear about them: They're good, they're bad, they're just what CO needed, they ruined the game; so on & so on. With all the different types, it's easy to see why they would be useful; the rewards they give, instantaneous or short-term buffs alike, are a great boon to players of all levels. Not to mention the opportunity Alerts present to showcase both old villains & new, reminding us how varied the game can be in our own character customization.
On the other hand, it is also easy to see why Alerts get so much negative crticism. A lost Alert is wasted time. There are no partial rewards, and victory is most certainly not guaranteed. This becomes especially troublesome with the longer Alerts, such as Warlord's or GRAB's. What leads to failed Alerts? Most players instantly think of the admittance of low-level players, from as early as Level 6. The game compensates for this by pumping their stats (and their stats alone) to Level 30 numbers, but this does little to help in the long-run. What's more, players above Level 30 who join have their stats lowered to make the group more even. This is not and has never been empowering to end-game players.
Speaking of end-game players, allow me to take a small tangent here. Before Alerts, one of the biggest hot-button issues was that there wasn't much worthwhile content after reach Level 40; not enough "game" left in the game. Lairs and Comic Adventures have helped with that, but since Alerts came along, we now have a different issue: Hardly any new players are actually experiencing most of CO's existing content. A specific type of Alert, known as "Smash!", grants a large XP reward and a timed buff for all gained XP after. Since leveling became as easy as standing in one spot and constantly queueing for Alerts, zones outside Millennium City are all-but deserted. Only one partially-filled instance of each exists where there once was many. Players act lost & confused when others talk about going to Vibora Bay or Monster island.
My suggestion is a simple one. Simply put: Convert all Alert content for access by Level 40 characters only. What would this change? Here's a list:
1) High-level characters would no longer be reduced in effectiveness.
2) In relation, Alert difficulty would rise, giving good reason to make resource, mod & Questionite rewards & item drop rates higher.
3) Low-level characters would no longer be "carried" through an Alert, making player-relationships better as a whole.
4) There would be no further need for Smash Alerts, bringing the lion's share of the game's terrific content back into the foreground.
My friends, what we have here is an opportunity. A chance to not only please the more-experienced of the player-base, but also to breathe new life into what is already there and is being neglected. Make Alerts your end-game content. Turn what is widely considered a jumbled mess into one of CO's better features.
On the other hand, it is also easy to see why Alerts get so much negative crticism. A lost Alert is wasted time. There are no partial rewards, and victory is most certainly not guaranteed. This becomes especially troublesome with the longer Alerts, such as Warlord's or GRAB's. What leads to failed Alerts? Most players instantly think of the admittance of low-level players, from as early as Level 6. The game compensates for this by pumping their stats (and their stats alone) to Level 30 numbers, but this does little to help in the long-run. What's more, players above Level 30 who join have their stats lowered to make the group more even. This is not and has never been empowering to end-game players.
Speaking of end-game players, allow me to take a small tangent here. Before Alerts, one of the biggest hot-button issues was that there wasn't much worthwhile content after reach Level 40; not enough "game" left in the game. Lairs and Comic Adventures have helped with that, but since Alerts came along, we now have a different issue: Hardly any new players are actually experiencing most of CO's existing content. A specific type of Alert, known as "Smash!", grants a large XP reward and a timed buff for all gained XP after. Since leveling became as easy as standing in one spot and constantly queueing for Alerts, zones outside Millennium City are all-but deserted. Only one partially-filled instance of each exists where there once was many. Players act lost & confused when others talk about going to Vibora Bay or Monster island.
My suggestion is a simple one. Simply put: Convert all Alert content for access by Level 40 characters only. What would this change? Here's a list:
1) High-level characters would no longer be reduced in effectiveness.
2) In relation, Alert difficulty would rise, giving good reason to make resource, mod & Questionite rewards & item drop rates higher.
3) Low-level characters would no longer be "carried" through an Alert, making player-relationships better as a whole.
4) There would be no further need for Smash Alerts, bringing the lion's share of the game's terrific content back into the foreground.
My friends, what we have here is an opportunity. A chance to not only please the more-experienced of the player-base, but also to breathe new life into what is already there and is being neglected. Make Alerts your end-game content. Turn what is widely considered a jumbled mess into one of CO's better features.
Post edited by daisolaar on
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Comments
Do this and alerts will end up like Sky Command and the Nighthawk event, nobody will que and people will complain that nobody queues. Took me twenty minute to get into the penthouse with two level 8s, a level 14, and a level 27. Where's the 40? Oh that was me.
See how long it takes you to get a full team to raid level 42 lairs.
Go ahead. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes?
How many people are in Vibora bay on a Saturday night playing level 38+ content?
Eight, maybe twelve?
The solution to noobs in alerts is noob level alerts that scale to level 15 and lock out anyone level 20 and higher. I think they didn't do this because it would cause issues in mixed teams and of course crying from people with level 40s who want to play the content but not fork over some Z for a character slot. That and the level 30 alerts would have zero population. Its already a long drag to get alerts to activate for most of the night.
Actually they need a Que system for all the lowbie content, so the lowbies get put together instead of the typical begging for a team for thirty minutes and logging off from the MMO where players don't play together. Makes me mad when I can't save all of them lost lambs. Cryptic, help me save the flock!
Yikes... that's a bad idea.
On the other hand, making more level 40 only alerts is a good idea. But taking away alerts from everyone who isn't level 40 is really just a terrible idea in a game that is so focused on leveling up new characters repeatedly. I'm all for adding more endgame, but defenitely not at the expense of removing level up content.
Again, I see this idea being presented that the mission content is the better part of the game. It's clearly not. People who like missions can do missions. Forcing everyone to do missions to level up will only cause people to quit. You do realize that you would be asking many long time players to go back and do content that they are bored of, right?
People are not doing Smash alerts just because it's more XP; they're doing smash alerts because they're bored of the mediocre mission content. The missions are fun the first few times through for some people, but for most it's not fun after the first few times, and for some people it's never fun to begin with.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Yes more levl 40 alerts is a good idea but don't remove the content for lower level toons, then the 13 characters I been sitting on really wont ever level up.
Shadow Destroyer, Dr. Destroyer, Slug (Who is sorely under represented), Menton (The world's most powerful psychic needs more screen time), and other high end super villains would work well for this mode. Could even make a Super Mega Destroid one that's basically a suped-up Mega Destroid battle that anyone could jump into at any time.
I concur.
The main reason why it seems like a lot of low levels are queing fr alerts is because the real reason is that not many 40s are queing for alerts.
Sky command, always near empty.
Hell, even sometimes it's a pain to get a nem con going and even then rarely is it all level 40s.
One way to solve the lowbe in alert missions is to stop telling the newbies that alerts are the fast way to level. It aint, not if the alert fail.
Maybe add a scale effect. like every so often levels scales.
But really, on most alert teams, there usually even no more than two 40s I seen if any on alerts teams. Most of the time there are no level 40s and most of them are still successful even with the 11 doing his thing. They may not be pumping out 15,000 damage every two seconds but as long as they doing what they can, I dont mind them.
Locking all out besides 40s will basically kill the alert system. In the mean time the solution is a lot more simple. More 40s actually que up. And I suspect most of the low levels are not new people just coming into this game. I suspect many have mny 40s under their belts and just trying to dodge the low level content especially MC westside stuff. It aint exactly many choices there.
But as stated by others I think ADDING alerts for level 40 or something but also one the same scale, they really really need to add some more low level content.