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PWE 3rd quarter results

dantheiceman1dantheiceman1 Posts: 121 Arc User
edited December 2014 in Champions Online Discussion
which i find really funny because they are pointing a finger and blaming the American end of operations.

well i guess thats what you get for making cheap poorly designed games with almost zero support



http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/11/26/perfect-worlds-q3-results-down/


so i'll just leave this here
http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=124755
The Nemesis system needs fixing and here's ideas:
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Post edited by dantheiceman1 on
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  • selpheaselphea Posts: 1,229 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    In the comments section someone actually gave a clearer breakdown of the numbers. Apparently the article was misleading.
  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Cool story bro. Did you read the full financial break down or just that very anemic paragraph with all of zero details?
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  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    edited November 2014
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited November 2014
  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    My point was that OP is implying that Cryptic making shoddy games like CO is weighing down PW's bottom line based on an article with nothing even remotely proving that. It's the equivalent of saying "CO is a terribad game because Reasons."
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  • chimerafreekchimerafreek Posts: 383 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Personally I HOPE NWO gets shut down so maybe they could put more attention into CO.
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  • mrhinkypunkmrhinkypunk Posts: 1,569 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Personally I HOPE NWO gets shut down so maybe they could put more attention into CO.

    Yes yes this is a very idea.
  • kallethenkallethen Posts: 1,576 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    So I looked at that PW news release of the third quarter results after reading the Massively article. And here's my thought:

    Wow, what a misleading pile of journalism.
    100% of the world is crazy, 95% are in denial.

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  • sorceror01sorceror01 Posts: 210 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Personally I HOPE NWO gets shut down so maybe they could put more attention into CO.
    Yes yes this is a very idea.

    You guys do realize that the dev team that handles Neverwinter is a completely different dev team than the one that handles Champions, right? In completely different cities?
    Cryptic handles Neverwinter and Star Trek.
    Cryptic North handles Champions.
    Shutting down Neverwinter would have little to no appreciable impact on Champions or Cryptic North.
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    spinnytop wrote: »
    If we what? I'm on the edge of my seat here...

    sorry brain locked up at that point.
    I got the link by clicking on one of the coloured words in the article but then forgot what it was.

    the PWE news releases were much more interesting.
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  • p0temk1np0temk1n Posts: 222 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Interesting. But the article doesn't quite match the information given in the report.


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  • chalupaoffurychalupaoffury Posts: 2,553 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    chaelk wrote: »

    This made my eye twitch for 2 reasons:

    1- catering to people who fully suck at the game is good for who exactly? I'm not saying it has to be simple, but I lost count of how many friends left the game because of the hilariously low learning curve and sudden drop in difficulty near endgame. I know, personal opinion, but from my end of things doing this is part of the reason we're at such low pop right now. We're starting to see a swing in the opposite direction though, which will be great when they balance the rewards to suit.

    2- raids don't have to be fully elite top spec and top gear to complete. there's more to gameplay than just numbers.

    Every time I read an article like this, I come to "You must not like MMOs much". His argument basically boiled down to "raiding alienates lower skill players, let's turn MMOs into over-glorified avatar chats". That's working REAL well for us, isn't it? O_o
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  • crypticbuxomcrypticbuxom Posts: 4,585 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Personally I HOPE NWO gets shut down so maybe they could put more attention into CO.

    They would probably also shut down CO for having the gall of having its money being stolen to support the game in the first place.
  • nephtnepht Posts: 6,883 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    As someone that has a tiny amount ( and I mean tiny amount ) of shares in PWE all the stuff Ive kept up on so far say they are in the black.

    Of course this year wasnt going to make as much as last year as they didnt have any big US release this year. PW wasnt picking on the US branch just pointing out there was no "Neverwinter" style launch this year.

    Being a buisness they obviously will have a new shiny to keep the hipsters happy next year.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    sorceror01 wrote: »
    You guys do realize that the dev team that handles Neverwinter is a completely different dev team than the one that handles Champions, right? In completely different cities?
    Cryptic handles Neverwinter and Star Trek.
    Cryptic North handles Champions.
    Shutting down Neverwinter would have little to no appreciable impact on Champions or Cryptic North.

    This is dumb. People don't make video games, all video games are made by a computer that the government made with our tax money. That's why we're all justified in complaining about free games.

    This made my eye twitch for 2 reasons:

    1- catering to people who fully suck at the game is good for who exactly? I'm not saying it has to be simple, but I lost count of how many friends left the game because of the hilariously low learning curve and sudden drop in difficulty near endgame. I know, personal opinion, but from my end of things doing this is part of the reason we're at such low pop right now. We're starting to see a swing in the opposite direction though, which will be great when they balance the rewards to suit.

    2- raids don't have to be fully elite top spec and top gear to complete. there's more to gameplay than just numbers.

    1- I don't think "catering to people who are bad at the game" was the point of the article. In fact, that's a completely backwards take on it as far as I can tell. The article was making the point that raids encourage behavior that has negative implications for the social aspect of online games... which they certainly do. I too was in guild meetings where we discussed if so-and-so was holding us back - and it wore on my conscience after not very long.. the feeling of "I'm an important decision maker!" was quickly replaced with "I'm being a **** over loot in a game!" - my fellow officers, who were riding high on the thrill of being important and having authority, did not share my sentiments and were quick to become grump guses about it.

    This is of course subverted by the fact that the best guilds in any game I've been in were the ones where we had a strict policy of never having those kinds of meetings and prioritizing "did we have fun?" over "did we succeed?" (the kind of attitude some people in this game, ironically enough, could stand to adopt).

    TL;DR - the article is not saying "make games easier".


    2- in fact, one could argue that numbers barely even qualify as a meaningful aspect of gameplay anymore.

    Every time I read an article like this, I come to "You must not like MMOs much". His argument basically boiled down to "raiding alienates lower skill players, let's turn MMOs into over-glorified avatar chats". That's working REAL well for us, isn't it? O_o

    You seem to have missed the point... he's saying that MMO =/= RAID. He's right too, not every MMO needs raids. Just like he pointed out, that's just another false standard that WOW brainwashed us into believing that all MMOs have to adhere to. It's not.

    To kind of flip it around on you... you seem to be in love with WoW raids... to which I have to respond "You must not like CO much" :P

    Also, his argument is not "raiding alienates lower skill players". In fact, again, that's a backward take on what he's saying. Take me for example, I was a highly skilled raider, highly dedicated too - showed up every raid, always got the job done, picked first for new content not just because of my gear level but because of my skills. Raiding alienated me for the very reasons the article gives: It limited which of my friends I could regularly play with - not all my friends could devote several hours, several days per week. Also not all of them, for whatever reason, were very skilled at the challenges that raids put forth (often it simply boiled down to their computer not being strong enough to handle an X man raid).

    So, despite the fact that I enjoyed raids, their very nature eventually caused me to abandon them in favor of smaller content. The majority of my last year with WoW was spent running 5 man dungeons that offered me no gear rewards because they were the type of content I could run with anyone. That kind of bite-size content is much more conducive to a social environment than a raid is.

    And yes, CO may not have millions of subscribers (yet another false standard of "a successful mmo" that WoW brainwashed us all into thinking every mmo needs to adhere to), but when it comes to the social aspect you can see that bite-size content works here, and it works very well. We even have the side-kicking system, and skull-tech, to ensure that players can always team up with their friends without worrying that their high level friend will trivialize the content, or that a low level friend will have to spend the entire time hiding in the back. The metric here is not "how many millions of subscribers" but instead how easily people can create and maintain social bonds, and in CO that is extremely easy to do because you'll never have to decide if you have to shut a friend out of your playtime because they're "holding you back".




    PS - the irony here is that I'm currently procrastinating on writing an essay for school that has a lower word requirement than the post I just wrote u3u
  • gandalesgandales Posts: 340 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    spinnytop wrote: »

    Also, his argument is not "raiding alienates lower skill players". In fact, again, that's a backward take on what he's saying. Take me for example, I was a highly skilled raider, highly dedicated too - showed up every raid, always got the job done, picked first for new content not just because of my gear level but because of my skills. Raiding alienated me for the very reasons the article gives: It limited which of my friends I could regularly play with - not all my friends could devote several hours, several days per week. Also not all of them, for whatever reason, were very skilled at the challenges that raids put forth (often it simply boiled down to their computer not being strong enough to handle an X man raid).

    So, despite the fact that I enjoyed raids, their very nature eventually caused me to abandon them in favor of smaller content. The majority of my last year with WoW was spent running 5 man dungeons that offered me no gear rewards because they were the type of content I could run with anyone. That kind of bite-size content is much more conducive to a social environment than a raid is.

    And yes, CO may not have millions of subscribers (yet another false standard of "a successful mmo" that WoW brainwashed us all into thinking every mmo needs to adhere to), but when it comes to the social aspect you can see that bite-size content works here, and it works very well. We even have the side-kicking system, and skull-tech, to ensure that players can always team up with their friends without worrying that their high level friend will trivialize the content, or that a low level friend will have to spend the entire time hiding in the back. The metric here is not "how many millions of subscribers" but instead how easily people can create and maintain social bonds, and in CO that is extremely easy to do because you'll never have to decide if you have to shut a friend out of your playtime because they're "holding you back".




    PS - the irony here is that I'm currently procrastinating on writing an essay for school that has a lower word requirement than the post I just wrote u3u

    There are many mmos in the market. Many of them f2p and/or free to try. I don't think wow or for whatever trend in mmos is brainwashing players. Raids are the pinnacle of teamwork, one messed up and raid groups get wiped. Of course, this creates tension in the social aspect of the game. It ends up cattering the small percentage of players that besides their skills are putting time and sometimes money. I used to raid in wow, I couldn't continue due to schedule and rl commitments. Clearing raid bosses is not the same as beating mechanon or even fire and ice. The closest thing we have to a raid boss is Therakiel. Raid groups at least in wow vanilla and bc had to know ieach other very well(in-game), so I wouldn't discount the social aspect involves but there was a time to goof around and other to play seriously.

    I don't play wow, I will probably only play it on free weekends to see the new non-raid content but I don't think badly about the game, because it was the one which put mmos in mainstream culture. Without wow, probably many games including CO would have not been considered as a viable business option.

    Taking out raids is basically lowering the upperbound requirement for teamwork. I don't mind playing 5 man instances as long their boss encounters are well design. In CO, very few encounters requires a reasonable level of teamwork.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    gandales wrote: »
    There are many mmos in the market. Many of them f2p and/or free to try. I don't think wow or for whatever trend in mmos is brainwashing players.

    Yes, now there are. Go back in time to when WoW was making headlines after it rocketed to the top shortly after release. That's when the brainwashing occured.
    gandales wrote: »
    Raid groups at least in wow vanilla and bc had to know each other very well(in-game), so I wouldn't discount the social aspect involves but there was a time to goof around and other to play seriously.

    They didn't have to know each other very well in any sort of social way... they just had to know three things: (1) their gear level, (2) their schedule, (3) if they're a noob. There's a reason that "social guild" is generally considered a different type than "raiding guild".
    gandales wrote: »
    Without wow, probably many games including CO would have not been considered as a viable business option.

    That brain-washing hard at work.
    gandales wrote: »
    Taking out raids is basically lowering the upperbound requirement for teamwork.

    Untrue. 5-man content can have a very high teamwork requirement as well. Conversely, I remember many raid encounters that didn't require any more teamwork than the most basic 5 man encounters. In fact, if you break down many of the raids that have existed over the years, you'll realize that the player requirement is quite inflated - a given 40 man raid could have easily been pushed out as a 5 man dungeon, because the majority of those 40 people were either just healers-a-healin', dpsers-a-dpsin', or tanks-a-tankin'. Just because there are 5 tanks being healed by 5 healers while 30 dps stand around spamming their rotations doesn't mean there's more teamwork happening than a 5 man dungeon with one tank, one healer, and 3 dps - it just means they inflated the numbers to make it require more people to make it seem more "epic".

    There's a reason they dropped 40 man raids... and then started making 10 man versions of all the 25 man raids... and then started making raid-level gear acquirable through 5 man dungeons...
  • chalupaoffurychalupaoffury Posts: 2,553 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Wow, and people say I put words in HIS mouth. He flat out SAID raids are bad because they exclude the lower skill sections of the community. How is that *not* arguing for dumbing down the difficulty? "Stop doing this, partially because less skilled people can't". Why in the honest hell is suggesting raids could be fun such a bad thing in this damn game? WTB a lair pass, to make all of em viable for 5 man teams, 10 at the most. I *love* rampages. I ain't even ashamed. Hell, y'all got the rest of the game to play with. Why would fixing like 4 instances to do what they were arguably designed to do really impact anyone else's game experience that badly? We've already *got* the framework to do raids. They said a bunch of times they were updating em, to the point where lots of us just gave up asking.

    I've introduced about 50 people to this game. More than 2/3rds of them left because there's nothing to do at endgame. You know what you do at endgame? You raid stuff. That's an mmo in a nutshell. Why is this somehow a crazy revelation? What is there to do in every other mmo that's successful? 400 different dungeons, and a bunch of open world bosses that drop great loot. What's there to do here? 4 rampages, nemcon the once a day it pops, and the event every few months. Yeah, but *I'm* the one off base here. O_o

    Can't even pvp anymore, they nuked the rewards for that. We've got a company that hates one form of endgame and a vocal section of the player base that seems disgusted when anyone suggests the other. Sure, let's just stagnate then. That's fun, at least nobody's getting what they want.

    Dazee, you said recently that people would leave the game en masse if they made ren cen civvies intangible. Last conversation I witnessed you have, I believe. You can't see why maybe the game being stupidly easy might chase some players off? It's not even that the game is easy across the board, that's absolutely fine. It's more that there's really not much to do for those of us that DO want the harder challenge. This is also the only mmo where people will say with a straight face "be worse at building" rather than admitting that maybe the content could use a boost on the upper end of the difficulty. It's at the point where even the hard content doesn't give any serious rewards anymore. Elite APs used to be good content for good gear. That got argued away, using similar logic of "it excludes the lower skill or build ability". Forum malvanum and stuff like the nighthawk event? Hard. Nothing good to be had. You don't think this might impact the longevity of some players?

    It's not like it takes forever to get to endgame and figure out that there's not a hell of a lot of hard content there to do.

    Also, ITT: People pretend mmos weren't some niche fringe market before WoW made em mainstream. I don't even LIKE that game and I can't deny this fact. It's not "brainwashing" that they made a successful game, and you're not drinking any kool-aid by admitting they nailed the formula that makes one work for a long time. It's 10 years old. It's currently got 7.4 million active subscribers. No amount of spin put out there by someone who doesn't like the style of MMO will hide any of that data. Boring as hell? Probably. But meanwhile every other MMO company INCLUDING THIS ONE is trying to catch the same lightning in a bottle.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    I've introduced about 50 people to this game. More than 2/3rds of them left because there's nothing to do at endgame. You know what you do at endgame? You raid stuff. That's an mmo in a nutshell.

    That brainwashing hard at work.
  • crosschancrosschan Posts: 920 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    gandales wrote: »
    Stuff

    -WoW
    +Everquest
    +Ultima Online
    +Dark Age of Camelot
    +Anarchy Online


    WoW did not invent the wheel. It just strapped that wheel to an easy-mode car on a track that drove itself when someone sat in it's seat.....and the people rejoiced. :wink:

    I also agree with some that the smaller member requirement "Raids"(for lack of a better term in this discussion) in various MMOs(Anarchy Online and WAR spring to mind for this, especially WAR) are more challenging than, for example, something like a 72 person Everquest Planar Raid. Not to mention, at least in my obvservations/opinions that the smaller content like 5-man stuff has less system resource issues and therefore allow for more ellaborate mechanics without fear of something like EQ's "LOOK AT YOUR FEET NOW!!!" issues.

    IMO, the future of "Endgame Content"(One aspect, not all of it) should be something like Tomb of The Vulture Lord in WAR with a functioning CO Difficulty Slider, no level cap increases EVER(AA/Rep Systems instead), and a token/currenty system that awards X Tokens for a normal run and X + Y tokens, where Y increases based on difficulty setting. Oh, and the difficulty slider doesn't mean +HP/Damage only...it also means additional mob powers/tactics/AI...like a very few mobs in Serpent Lantern actually exhibit.

    Note: This is coming from someone who was a raid leader "back in the day" in Everquest....and someone who escaped that game thankfully. :cool:
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  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    I personally hate classic PvE raiding. Mostly because listening to someone go over in detail everything you need to do and when is a snooze-fest. Yeah, lots of social interaction there. I also hate the gear grind required to even get into raiding in the first place. Gear that is trash as soon as the next expansion comes out. End game being all about gear grind is pretty damn boring.

    The open world zone event raids that Rift has I do like. Although they don't compare to running oRvR PUG Warbands back when castle sieges were awesome instead of one-sided zerg rushes. Are we counting PvP object based raids? Because I love that. Well, not AV. That was always an icky CF to me.
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  • jennymachxjennymachx Posts: 3,000 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    The only thing that ever bothered me about raids is gear gating. It was the one thing that ruined RIFT for me even though I enjoyed the game overall. I met the numerical gear score, but the leader decided that my gear didn't fit a made-up standard with full disregard for my skill level. Yay.

    It's entirely possible to make raid content without a gear gate to avoid that sort of elitism and still make what it is that's fun about raiding: Huge participation to go up against an epic foe.

    Rikti mothership raid parties in CoX didn't recruit members on the basis of their build or gear. Fun, challenging and successful raids were still possible. That's one example.
  • hyperstrikecohhyperstrikecoh Posts: 472 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Also, ITT: People pretend mmos weren't some niche fringe market before WoW made em mainstream. I don't even LIKE that game and I can't deny this fact. It's not "brainwashing" that they made a successful game, and you're not drinking any kool-aid by admitting they nailed the formula that makes one work for a long time. It's 10 years old. It's currently got 7.4 million active subscribers. No amount of spin put out there by someone who doesn't like the style of MMO will hide any of that data. Boring as hell? Probably. But meanwhile every other MMO company INCLUDING THIS ONE is trying to catch the same lightning in a bottle.


    Yeah. And it's never going to happen.

    WoW is a mutant. A sport. A fluke. It happened to hit a certain lucky confluence of events and situations and exploded into the behemoth it now is.

    All these companies racing along trying to "be the next WoW" are deluded. The market is VASTLY different than it was back in 2004-2005.

    Prior to WoW nuking the MMO scene, a game was AAA with a successful release and a couple hundred thousand regular subs.

    Now, after a fluke, if it isn't "pulling WoW numbers" its a failure? Basically investors and publishers underwent an unhealthy change in perspective. And worse, it has bled back into their existing products. They want WoW, but they don't want to pony up the kind of cash Blizzard pumps into their game and marketing. But they still want WoW! And when they don't get it, they simply give up.

    In short. WoW was a one-off. The the only way ANYONE will EVER duplicate what they did will be the same exact way WoW did it. BY COMPLETE LUCK AND ACCIDENT. And that's a crappy way to try and plan or run a business.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Yeah. And it's never going to happen.

    WoW is a mutant. A sport. A fluke. It happened to hit a certain lucky confluence of events and situations and exploded into the behemoth it now is.

    All these companies racing along trying to "be the next WoW" are deluded. The market is VASTLY different than it was back in 2004-2005.

    Prior to WoW nuking the MMO scene, a game was AAA with a successful release and a couple hundred thousand regular subs.

    Now, after a fluke, if it isn't "pulling WoW numbers" its a failure? Basically investors and publishers underwent an unhealthy change in perspective. And worse, it has bled back into their existing products. They want WoW, but they don't want to pony up the kind of cash Blizzard pumps into their game and marketing. But they still want WoW! And when they don't get it, they simply give up.

    In short. WoW was a one-off. The the only way ANYONE will EVER duplicate what they did will be the same exact way WoW did it. BY COMPLETE LUCK AND ACCIDENT. And that's a crappy way to try and plan or run a business.

    ^ 100% that.

    gradii wrote: »
    Gear gates are an abomination. that much is agreed. in fact I agree with all of this post. although I can't comment on the rikti raids, never did one.

    ^ also 100% that. Gear gating is another way of saying "Sorry, you can't play with your more casual friends... but feel free to group up with these uber-serious ******** instead!"
  • gandalesgandales Posts: 340 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    jennymachx wrote: »
    The only thing that ever bothered me about raids is gear gating. It was the one thing that ruined RIFT for me even though I enjoyed the game overall. I met the numerical gear score, but the leader decided that my gear didn't fit a made-up standard with full disregard for my skill level. Yay.

    It's entirely possible to make raid content without a gear gate to avoid that sort of elitism and still make what it is that's fun about raiding: Huge participation to go up against an epic foe.

    Rikti mothership raid parties in CoX didn't recruit members on the basis of their build or gear. Fun, challenging and successful raids were still possible. That's one example.

    Gear gating, apart of the bragging stuff, is placed to set progression between different raids. That way, a player won't fight the lich king without clearing the previous lesser factions in the specific expansion.

    The initial Therakiel was not too difficult but it required collaboration so if you get an player that start messing up the fight not only for himself but for others, can be really frustrating.

    In CO, gear gating is not possible because we have low population, but in other games like dcuo seems to work pretty fine.

    Another thing, I can acknowledge that 5-man encounters can be well design and interesting, but they lack of the versatility of having more players. A 5man composition 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps. No healer rotation or tank rotation is commonly necessary. In raids dps's can do interesting seems like when 3 hunters could kite/switch aggro on a raid miniboss while the rest of the raid where killing the other bosses. I think the reason that wow switched from 40 to 25/10 man raids was that over 25 players was little incentive in terms of fight complexity and going easy on low performance graphic cards. I like the idea of 5/10 man encounters mainly because they are easier to organize but that does not mean that I can't acknowledge that greater raids has more potential for interesting fights.
  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,315 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    The problem with WoW-style raiding is that soon, it devolves into a situation where only experienced raiders are desired for any raids. At all.

    As an example, and one of the things that finally turned me off of the game: There's a mission given to at least Warriors at lvl 14 to acquire an item from an abandoned castle full of evil whatevers in Silver-something (Silverwood? It's been a while). You can't go in unless you're part of a team. So, I hooked up with a PUG, and started the raid - only to be kicked by the raid leader when I admitted that it was my first raid. First-timers are unwelcome there.

    Fortunately, I haven't seen that mentality taking over here - yet...

    (And yes, that "gearscore" nonsense was more than a little annoying as well. You were supposed to already have the gear that dropped as a reward for running the lair, if not something better. And Light help you if you were gauche enough to be wearing last season's gear...)
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  • gandalesgandales Posts: 340 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    jonsills wrote: »
    The problem with WoW-style raiding is that soon, it devolves into a situation where only experienced raiders are desired for any raids. At all.

    As an example, and one of the things that finally turned me off of the game: There's a mission given to at least Warriors at lvl 14 to acquire an item from an abandoned castle full of evil whatevers in Silver-something (Silverwood? It's been a while). You can't go in unless you're part of a team. So, I hooked up with a PUG, and started the raid - only to be kicked by the raid leader when I admitted that it was my first raid. First-timers are unwelcome there.

    Fortunately, I haven't seen that mentality taking over here - yet...

    (And yes, that "gearscore" nonsense was more than a little annoying as well. You were supposed to already have the gear that dropped as a reward for running the lair, if not something better. And Light help you if you were gauche enough to be wearing last season's gear...)

    You might be referring to shadowfang keep, which is a normal instance for 5 players, an experience player would not even care about, unless it was the heroic version lvl 85 for cataclysm.
    My guessing is that since you were a warrior you were expected to tank, and tanks usually are expected to lead the group which sucks most of the time.

    Recently I bought wow again from vanilla to pandaria, during the free month I lvled a worgen warrior and I went to shadowfang keep, no issues, a paladin was leading so I got lucky.
  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,315 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    The name sounds familiar. The group was actually doing pretty well; I made a random mistake somewhere in the run, something incredibly minor, and compounded my error by admitting it was my first run. I was promptly booted by the leader.
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  • lestylolestylo Posts: 375 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    Raids are a funny thing. Differs from game to game of course and are absolutely wonderful with a guild you know or friends. Beyond that they can be very annoying.

    jonsills wrote: »
    The problem with WoW-style raiding is that soon, it devolves into a situation where only experienced raiders are desired for any raids. At all.

    As an example, and one of the things that finally turned me off of the game: There's a mission given to at least Warriors at lvl 14 to acquire an item from an abandoned castle full of evil whatevers in Silver-something (Silverwood? It's been a while). You can't go in unless you're part of a team. So, I hooked up with a PUG, and started the raid - only to be kicked by the raid leader when I admitted that it was my first raid. First-timers are unwelcome there.

    Fortunately, I haven't seen that mentality taking over here - yet...

    (And yes, that "gearscore" nonsense was more than a little annoying as well. You were supposed to already have the gear that dropped as a reward for running the lair, if not something better. And Light help you if you were gauche enough to be wearing last season's gear...)


    Reminds me of Neverwinter sadly. It's at the point where it is considered a bad idea to run with a group comprised of people in the same guild (and you being the only one not in their guild) because it is almost certain you will get kicked, no matter how well you do. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who do not know what they are doing in Neverwinter (or appear to), which leads to people having next to no patience. This is the issue I face when running skirmishes. Tanks that don't tank, healers that don't heal, people who leave you high an dry because you are leading in damage rankings, all of it occurring over and over some days can try a person's patience. I'm not condoning the behavior or practice, just saying.
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  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    edited November 2014
    How raids work:

    1. Devs spend endless time making a raid. Hundrends of hours.

    2. Devs release raids and players rejoice.

    3. Devs make new raids for a new land.

    3a. Those new raids and new lands beef character power out the wazoo.

    4. New lands come out and no one ever plays in the old world ever again.

    4a. A whole lot of dev time and effort was wasted because devs decided shooting themselves in the foot was a great way to make new content.

    5. Anyone that missed an expansion needs to start over because their character is poor and has garbage gear. Or they can buy this fabulous insta-90 character just so they can actually play the game with a character that doesn't blow chunks.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    jonsills wrote: »
    The name sounds familiar. The group was actually doing pretty well; I made a random mistake somewhere in the run, something incredibly minor, and compounded my error by admitting it was my first run. I was promptly booted by the leader.

    Ah yes, the old irony of some noob kicking you out of the group because he's shaking in his boots at the idea that there's someone in his group who can't carry him. Best guilds I was in had a strict policy of "Oh... you haven't run this raid yet? Please join us and learn! :D".

    Ironically I got kicked out of a guild once because I was the one raid leader who would take newbies into raids over vets, and the vets started crying to the officers about it.

    Perfect examples of the kind of disgusting behavior that raids encourage.

    sterga wrote: »
    3a. Those new raids and new lands beef character power out the wazoo.

    4. New lands come out and no one ever plays in the old world ever again.

    4a. A whole lot of dev time and effort was wasted because devs decided shooting themselves in the foot was a great way to make new content.
    gandales wrote: »
    Gear gating, apart of the bragging stuff, is placed to set progression between different raids. That way, a player won't fight the lich king without clearing the previous lesser factions in the specific expansion.

    These two statements when placed side-by-side illustrate why CO does it better. When you think of the massive chunks of content over in WoW that have been sitting for years, empty, gathering cobwebs... it's almost criminal. And it's not just that game either; I ran into an issue with Tera where I stopped playing for a while, and when I came back new raids had come out - there were some raids just previous to that in the progression ladder that I had never gotten to do, and that I wanted to do... well, good luck getting a group for them now. So not only is some of that "last season" raid content going unused, some of it never got to be used by some players to begin with.

    We here have the opportunity to become so very tired of all the content we do have because every last bit of it remains accessible and relevant.

    In some ways, CO's low popularity could be attributed to it being "before it's time". The population at large still hasn't shed the "rules" that WoW cemented into place.
  • gandalesgandales Posts: 340 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    spinnytop wrote: »

    In some ways, CO's low popularity could be attributed to it being "before it's time". The population at large still hasn't shed the "rules" that WoW cemented into place.

    "I am clearly too evolve to drive" - Dr. Sheldon Cooper :biggrin:
  • chalupaoffurychalupaoffury Posts: 2,553 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Raids don't have to be about the gear score. We've got more than enough stuff they could give out as incentive for running one. To me a raid is content that requires a team, is harder than the normal content, and requires endgame characters. Technically the rampages qualify for this, and the only reason they're getting stagnant is because we've all run them to death, and there are no new ones on the horizon.

    Let's be clear, all I'm asking for is a lair pass where we have to fight through some decently hard mobs, which culminate in a fight on the difficulty level of fire and ice or gravitar. Maybe one that takes longer than 10-15 minutes to run the entire event.

    I continue to be amazed at how many people seem dead set against endgame content.
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  • thatcursedwolfthatcursedwolf Posts: 484 Arc User
    edited December 2014

    I continue to be amazed at how many people seem dead set against endgame content.

    If I wanted "endgame" I'd still be doing the guild grind in WoW.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    I continue to be amazed at how many people seem dead set against what I personally consider endgame content - and am completely unable to understand that people want endgame content, it just happens to be things that I don't consider valid endgame content which ends up severely distorting my view of how many people actually do want endgame content.

    The yellow parts.


    I want endgame content. Tons of it.

    I don't want raids. I already don't like how a certain fight has caused the phrase "Need 1 more healer" to pop up.
  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    I continue to be amazed at how many people seem dead set against endgame content.

    What is the point in leveling and having levels if the game doesn't begin until endgame? All of that crap between 1 and level cap? Waste of time, right?

    That's the problem with MMOs. The journey up in levels doesn't even matter and is nothing more than a grind to start the real game.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    sterga wrote: »

    That's the problem with MMOs. The journey up in levels doesn't even matter and is nothing more than a grind to start the real game.

    Not so much a problem as it is a numerical reality. No matter how slowly you do it, leveling up will always be temporary. Being max level is forever (until the next temporary levelup session when the next expansion hits).


    When you think about it... some people complain about how it doesn't take very long to level up... but a lot of problems in CO would be solved if they shortened it even more, and turned a large amount of "level up" content into endgame content instead. Imagine if you were max-level by the end of West-side, and the rest of M-City and the other zones were all stuff you do at max level to farm questionite and resources and whatever other rewards ya fancy. Just the notion of Jonsils suddenly finding himself knee-deep in end-game content is enough for me to want this to happen.
  • chalupaoffurychalupaoffury Posts: 2,553 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    sterga wrote: »
    What is the point in leveling and having levels if the game doesn't begin until endgame? All of that crap between 1 and level cap? Waste of time, right?

    That's the problem with MMOs. The journey up in levels doesn't even matter and is nothing more than a grind to start the real game.

    Oh, definitely not saying that. But what's the point of leveling from 1-cap if there's nothing to do at the end?
    spinnytop wrote: »
    The yellow parts.


    I want endgame content. Tons of it.

    I don't want raids. I already don't like how a certain fight has caused the phrase "Need 1 more healer" to pop up.

    Yeah, heaven forbid 3 of the archetypes and a decent chunk of freeforms have something to do. What WOULD you want for endgame then? And why would a lair pass be such a bad thing? F*ck I'm not saying everyone else shouldn't get content too. I'm asking for literally stuff we have in the game to be made to work the way they said it would YEARS ago. But you don't wanna play that style, so they shouldn't do it.

    And this is why pvp doesn't exist. The irony in this argument is actually painful.
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  • gandalesgandales Posts: 340 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    sterga wrote: »
    What is the point in leveling and having levels if the game doesn't begin until endgame? All of that crap between 1 and level cap? Waste of time, right?

    That's the problem with MMOs. The journey up in levels doesn't even matter and is nothing more than a grind to start the real game.

    That's true, I tend to consider the leveling the single player aspect of the game which should help to know my powers and enjoy nice stories. End-game revolves more about team gaming.

    CoX broke with this paradigm since the objective of CoX was mostly lvling characters to know how the powers actually look. Still many players used powerleveling techniques in order to skip content .

    In the end, it is how you want to play the game. I would prefer to have more endgame, including some sort of progression either by gear or perks or whichever mechanism they can think.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Yeah, heaven forbid 3 of the archetypes and a decent chunk of freeforms have something to do.

    I play a healer. A pure healer. I'm finding plenty to do, and I'm not even max level yet. If nobody needs heals I throw some damage spells out. I also play a tank. Same deal. The game doesn't need raids so that tanks and healers have something to do. They also don't need trinity content - we had stuff to do long before F&I showed up.
    What WOULD you want for endgame then?

    5 man content that doesn't require trinity roles. 5 man content where I can grab any 4 other people and just go in
    And why would a lair pass be such a bad thing?

    I don't remember commenting on a lair pass. Wizard of oz.
    F*ck I'm not saying everyone else shouldn't get content too. I'm asking for literally stuff we have in the game to be made to work the way they said it would YEARS ago. But you don't wanna play that style, so they shouldn't do it.

    Oh, trying to pull the old switcheroo are we? I'll just go ahead and point out that you were the one who was saying that endgame = raiding.

    e.g.,
    You know what you do at endgame? You raid stuff. That's an mmo in a nutshell.

    I'm the one pointing out that it can be other things. Your little tricky trick aint' flyin'. I'm well known for being one of the "they should make stuff for everyone, not just one group of people" horn-blowers around here.
    And this is why pvp doesn't exist.

    pvp doesn't exist because the ques are bugged, actually.

    The irony in this argument is actually painful.

    Then stop pretending that that's the argument I'm making and all the pain will go away.
  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,315 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Just the notion of Jonsils suddenly finding himself knee-deep in end-game content is enough for me to want this to happen.
    What's so great about "endgame"? Why would I want the game to end?

    From the point of conception
    To the moment of truth,
    At the point of surrender
    To the burden of proof,

    From the point of ignition
    To the final drive,
    The point of the journey
    Is not to arrive -

    Anything can happen...


    - Rush, "Prime Mover"
    "Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"

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  • gandalesgandales Posts: 340 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    gradii wrote: »
    Firefall has a "hardcore" mode for instanced missions for characters level37 to 40.

    High level characters can re run the older instances with increased difficulty and rewards.

    We could use such a mode for CO lairs, where the normal difficulty settings are upped, so normal hardcore would be similar to elite non hardcore, and so on up to elite hardcore which is ridiculously difficult and requires a well coordinated team which knows what the hell theyre doing.

    rewards would scale according to difficulty setting, maybe get things like rank 6-7 mods, some g, q, Silver champs recognition etc..

    wow has had those heroic instances since Burning Crusade. It is actually the initial endgame in wow, before going to raids.
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