Halae wrote:

This is a topic I've been giving some consideration to for the last little while. in a lot of MMOs (and even some other games) there are special objectives you can achieve at endgame for a bragging rights reward - the Mind's Eye piercings in Monster Hunter, Legendary/Relic weapons in a number of MMOs, Special armor you can only craft after going through hell and back, and other such things. The important thing with all of these is that they're always long-term grinds that are intended to take the better part of a year. These are all extremely interesting because whenever they're patched in, they become something the top-end players of the game start pursuing, and even among casual players, getting them is something of a fun trip that gives them a reason to log in day after day to get that little bit of extra progress done.

I'm of the opinion that adding something like this to City of Titans (perhaps not at launch, but eventually) would be very helpful for the longevity of the game. Certainly, we're all interested in the mechanics of the game itself, but having something to work for is a big part of what keeps people invested in MMOs, which in turn gets them coming back and spending time in the game, which turns it into recurring spending. It's not vicious if they're actually getting something out of it, and a bragging-rights reward is exactly the sort of thing that adds to a game without causing undue problems for specific players.

With City of Titans not being gear based, it's at once both more and less restricted; there's no predefined thing we can slot it into (such as a weapon, or armor, or something like that) which makes the decision on what it can be more difficult. With the costume creator being such a huge deal, though, I could easily see it being something to do with that - maybe a cape that flows with a starry pattern to it? Some kind of extremely impressive aura, or a trail in their travel power? It'd certainly fit the style of some superheroes. More directly, part of the benefit of this is that it has no stats. No direct value that gives players an edge over people who haven't completed this "legendary" goal. This is important for balance reasons and the rule of fun - a style reward should JUST be style, in my opinion.

Anyways, this is as much intended to start a discussion on the topic as it is a suggestion for the devs. I'm curious to hear what kind of ideas people would have for this kind of reward; what would you spend months working towards?

I like long-term goals, as long as there are options for them legendary lewtz for solo players, even if it does take longer. Risk vs. reward and all that.
I suppose my only suggestion would be to have an increasing chance for a drop if its something farmable. I can't say I take any pleasure in clearing the same map over and over again ad nauseam when the drop rate is something like 0.06% (looking at you, Warframe). As motivated as I may be, that sh!t gets old after a while.

COH did not emphasize endgame. It emphasized variety of play. IE when you max a character you go back and play again as a new character. Or the same character but played in a different way. As you go through the forum you'll find many people who speak about having very few level 50s but many many different characters. Myself I think I had 8 or 9 level 50s of the 30 or so characters I rolled. In COH you could spend as much time in the character creator generating a new character as you would actually playing the character.

Like has already be stated there will be some high level achievements and long term goals but it's not going to be the emphasis.

The term "funny endgame" makes it sound like the endgame is supposed to be somehow humorous or whimsical. Can you explain what you mean by "funny", and if you do mean "humorous/whimsical" can you explain why that's a requirement for you? The term "funny endgame" is a new/foreign concept to me.

Personally, I am an oddball in that I don't grind hard to try to get my toon all geared up only to abandon the game a week or so after that toon is "complete". On original live CoH, I used to use mostly rare, and in some places uncommon sets and frankenslotted set comboes on my toons, and in the back of my mind was the ever-present "some day I'll have Radiac totally purpled out, some day..." but I never really got there.

On Homecoming, its WAY easier to get loot and so forth so I have like 3 toons "done" now, for the most part. The limiting factor in not Inf or Merits, but just the time it takes to actually figure out the optimal build. I tend to just feel my way around the toon in terms of endo, damage, and recharge rate and sort of wing it as I go. Even in that play style, I have no reason to play my tanker anymore. He's done, and I dont really love playing melee toons, so I just ignore him mostly. I use my "done" Mastermind to get Inf (tip missions solo at +0x8 no bosses, plus some marketeering).

That beign the case, the rarity of purples, HamiOs, and PVP IOs in live CoH kept me playing far longer than Homecoming will. IN live CoH, the higher up the gear mountain you climbed, the steeper the slope was to go any higher. People who play PvP want to max their build asap and then start dominating in PvP right away, and I get that, but I don't play that way and I will get more hours of fun out of a game if there's a brighter light at the end of a longer tunnel, as far as character enhancement items go.

ThunderCAP wrote:

@Radiac
I specified "funny" because we shouldn't include badge hunting in it or other similar activities that can be easily mistaken as "work". I understand some peoples may find funny to work or study, I do sometimes, but I wanted to make sure you all understood I'm referring to activities specifically created to be fun: games.
The endgame must be a "mini-game" (a game that's part of a bigger game, which is City of Titans itself), not an activity that a few may find fun and the majority may feel forced to participate for a reason or another (like "there is nothing else to do, so I hunt badges").

Personally I would rather use enjoyable than funny to describe this since it gives a clearer "picture" imo. To me, and I guess to certain degree Radiac, "being funny" implies that we should laugh from/with it while "to have fun" is not the same thing and can be many different activities.

You also don't want any end-game activities that can be mistaken for "work" so please give a few examples since I can't think of any. In all MMO's that I have tried end-game has always devolved into a grind, or "work" in a way.

Quote:

About that I'd like to repeat: [b]the endgame can be delayed for post-release[/b], even for years imho, but still we shouldn't suggest to CoT devs to avoid thinking about it entirely just because City of Heroes lacked one. That's one of City of Heroes easy-to-spot negative points, not a positive one.

Last info on this is that end-game will be a post-launch thing since they only plan to launch with content for the first 30 (out of 50) levels.

The problem is theme park mmo design (which we happen to fall within for CoT), is that there is no way a studio can keep pace with how quickly the player base devours content.

Whether it is raising levels, adding new gear, both, players will chew through it faster than a studio can release it. Which also lends into another issue of power creep.

The only way that it can possibly be done to keep pace - and players would hate this, is to make all possible rewards - and the content related to earning such rewards - time gated. It the gating would have to be designed around your standard release cycle to keep players perhaps within a window of time where they have gone through and earned what they need / want and aren’t waiting for ever.

The other option is that you have a sand box design where the “end game” is designed around player created content. That is most involve obtaining. expanding, and maintaining “thing(s) of value” in the game’s space. Eve Online is an excellent example of a well done sand box.

In this case ya, the devs set up the systems, which are all dependent on players to engage and manage these systems. The devs only come in to mess with the balance of systems - whether this is through nerfs, changes, or additions.

What does this mean for this current conversation? Well, before you look at reward, before you look at how to design content which covers both solo, group, and multi-group play (no small feat to accomplish there!), you have to look at, and understand what kind of game system you will be designing and if it will meat all the requirements if player involvement.

To be clear - we do plan on providing a toolset for player created content in the future. This is
NOT sand box design however - it is quasi-sand box but it’s very nature excludes the possibility of it being part of the game world there the content allows players to obtain, expand, and manage “stuff in the game space”.

The content being instanced and will need be subject to diminishing returns won’t work when it comes to reward earning and defied the game space portion provided in the sand box experience.

Another option for longevity could be essentially a New Game Plus. Once hitting max level being able to go back down to level 1 and start all over again with additional bonuses or something (which thinking about it is sort of similar to Alting as you now have resources from the first file).

No idea what the additional bonuses could be. A lot of things could/would unbalance things over time even if the bonuses were very slight. Not sure how many people would re level to max if the only reward was like, a badge or something.