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something for everyone

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Radiac
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something for everyone

Here is a list of things I came up with that I feel were driving forces for people to play CoX when it was still around.

PVEing: playing against the AI environment for it's own sake because its fun

PVPing: playing against other player(s) for the thrill of defeating another person(s)

soloing: playing without any other people on your team for the freedom and autonomy it provides

teaming: playing in an organized group of people for social fun

min/maxing: building the perfect beast on paper, then going out and running it through it's paces to work out the kinks

RPing: actually putting oneself in the mindset of one's toons and immersing oneself in the virtual world

badge hunting: collecting for the hobby of collection's sake for completeness

profiteering: playing a game in such a way that you can sell of unneeded swag to other people and maybe make some real world money for yourself.

creativity: designing costumes, SG bases, mission maps in AE, etc.

Clearly, CoT will not be able to 100% please all of these separate desires. Some people loved PVP and thought PVE was just a means to and end, and the more short-cuttable it was for them the better. Some (like me) ignored badges for the most part except the ones that could get you prestige powers like the Archmage Accolade, etc. I believe that we ought not try to minimize the parts of the old game that we personally didn't like or felt were tedious and instead worry about making the stuff we did like more engaging and more fun.

So instead of eliminating something you hated, tell me in this thread what you liked/disliked the most from the list above and then tell me how you'd go about making the parts you like MORE engaging and more fun, and I don't mean "easier, take less time to do, or make me personally win more" I mean more rich, complex, deep, etc.

I'll go first. I loved PVE and teaming and I hated PVP. I min/maxxed as much as needed to be more or less competitive but never obsessed over it, and I only soloed when I had to because nobody else was on. I didn't love or hate RPing but I usually couldn't resist the opportunity to break character if there was a chance to be funny in there. I never tried to make money off of CoX's swag system and gave away Infl on more than one occasion. I also used to help newbs if I could with good advice.

To make PVE teaming better, I would try to make more TFs trials like the Incarnate Trials CoX had at the end. They all seemed to need a coherent game plan and a big enough team with good enough stats to pull it off. Some were quite challenging, especially if you weren't going in "prepared" after several failed attempts and retries. Things like the warehouse/lab maps in the Lambda Trial which pretty much tried to force you to split the team up, and even then you had to bum rush through the map and aggro everything without actually stopping to defeat all of it or you'd run out of time. The BAF where you had to crowd control the escapees and then take down the bosses in parallel on a timer. The Keyes Island Reactor, etc, etc,. The more of this type of things they can make the better, I feel. Way better than just click glowwie or defeat boss. That stuff is fine for missions and stuff to solo, but I loves me some team content with the need for a game plan. Even after a given TF get's figured out, there's always the next one, and after time goes by, only the veterans know them all.

Again, please keep your responses in the spirit of "I'd do more of this or make it more complex this way" not "I'd get rid of X because I hated it and it was a waste of my time." I'm looking for addition by addition ideas, not "addition by subtraction". We're not trying to cut the fat, we're adding more beef instead..

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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A Comedy, Tonight!

A Comedy, Tonight!

Sorry, I saw the thread title and couldn't resist. ^_^

OTOH, I would like at least some comedic elements, whether in the story or the occasional pun. Levity is how we fight gravity.

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TheMightyPaladin
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You forgot to mention

You forgot to mention Artistic Expression
The thing I liked most about the game was playing around with the character creator, the base designer, and AE.
Those were the most engaging parts of the game because they were outlets for creativity
there are only 2 ways to make them more engaging:
1) provide more options
2) make them easier to use
I realize these 2 goals are often conflicting
and of the 2 more options is more important than ease of use
so just make sure the tutorial is available to refer back to when we need to.

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Dead on target, MP. The

Dead on target, MP. The sheer number of options and possibilities in the character creator was one of CoH's strongest points. And I can't recall the number of hours I spent in the base editor.

Radiac
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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

You forgot to mention Artistic Expression
The thing I liked most about the game was playing around with the character creator, the base designer, and AE.
Those were the most engaging parts of the game because they were outlets for creativity
there are only 2 ways to make them more engaging:
1) provide more options
2) make them easier to use
I realize these 2 goals are often conflicting
and of the 2 more options is more important than ease of use
so just make sure the tutorial is available to refer back to when we need to.

Added. I'd like to point out that MWM is already way ahead of the curve in this regard in that they're letting us choose the colors and graphics for powers separately from the powers themselves not to mention some of the Kickstarted perks that allowed high rollers to design some stuff of their own like Mogul and Registered Lethal Weapon, etc..

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

TheMightyPaladin
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totally cool!

totally cool!

Radiac
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I guess my first attempt at

I guess my first attempt at responding to my own query was not all that great. Anyone can say "I liked X, make more of that." but what I wanted to try to get at was how to make X better in and of itself. With that in mind...

For TFs and Trials, there should be at least some that are open to everyone and are as fun as the Incarnate Trials were in CoX. By that I mean they require at least some sense of organized teamwork in some way and give some decent rewards at the end. A lot of people say that the "avoid the green stuff" was the only new mechanic in any of those trials but I think the "metagame" for many of them was a little more complex than that, and certainly more complex than "defeat all in map". in the Lambda for instance, the two maps at a time nature of it, and the timer combined to make you want to NOT clear the map, but rather just crash into a mob, get the grenade or acid, then book it to the next weapon cache. Baddies would try to follow, people would have a hard time keeping up, people would get killed and have to come all the way back from the in-map hospital, or get rezzed on the spot, in the middle of a fight, etc. It forced you to do the opposite of what your instincts were in a lot of ways, or tried to. I also liked that you could try to do things without taking advantage of native resources or without crippling enemy response in various ways for badges. Like you got a badge for NOT using any Acids or nades, etc.

So more TF and trial metagame stuff that breeaks you out of the usual habits would be good. I'm at a loss to think of something that's as good as what they had in CoX but little rules, incentives, etc to do things differently or to think up a solution to the problem that ISN'T "punch harder" would be good.

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I liked doing missions and I

I liked doing missions and I think the best way to improve on them is to allow a greater variety of content.
In COH nearly all of the hazards were bad guys. There were a few missions where you might blow stuff up and be effected but not many.
I'd like it if there were traps, and alarms, especially if there were Powers that let you detect and either disarm or avoid them.
pits that open up when you walk on them (I know that's a trap but it's different from just taking damage)
Nets that...you get the idea
Statues (Probably Gargoyles) that are common decorations, so we don't automatically notice the status that are going to come to life and attack
Trees that are just like those statues
Vines that are just like the nets, except maybe more like the trees
I'd like secret doors
mirrors that might reflect some attacks, and be broken by others
mirrors that are clear on the other side so villains can see us coming.
bad guys that disguise themselves as harmless things and if you fail to notice them moving they might get away.
Bad guys who fake their death to escape but turn up later.
Animals and non humanoid monsters. maybe even a villain with a whole menagerie.
Villains who sit at control panels and control a bunch of stuff to fight you. (the control panel could look like a computer, a crystal ball or a pipe organ, etc...)
villains that try to run you down with vehicles
and above all Objects of all kinds that we can pick up and hit people with or throw
objects like fuse boxes and fire extinguishers that can be used
flammable things that catch fire (not Just combustibles that explode) and fires that will spread if you don't do something
Freezers and vaults you can get locked in and have to escape from
A vault wouldn't be too different from a prison cell but a freezer will cause cold damage if you take too long to get out.
Elevators that bad guys trap us in

Death traps we get put in when we're defeated. Maybe if you were nice to some NPC when you had a chance (instead of just skipping the dialog) there would be someone to set you free, if not you're on your own.

of course all of this would also mean more options available in the mission Architect.

Oh and on a different note: being able to move from one floor to another without a loading screen.

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One of the things I loved to

One of the things I loved to do redside was speed boost new toons. I spent many hours in Mercy doing that with the occasional Inertial Reduction thrown in for variety. In addition to the buffed toons getting to their missions faster, new players got to sample travel powers far earlier. In fact I made that toon with that purpose in mind. (Please keep in mind that Mercy was a place that was for lowbies to escape from, unlike Atlas Park which was also a major social center.)

I also liked playing around with bases. But it felt like a missed opportunity that so few folks ever got to really use that system, and that so few could see the results of a talented base designers efforts. One of my SGs was dedicated to the concept that EVERY member had base editing privileges.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

So more TF and trial metagame stuff that breeaks you out of the usual habits would be good. I'm at a loss to think of something that's as good as what they had in CoX but little rules, incentives, etc to do things differently or to think up a solution to the problem that ISN'T "punch harder" would be good.

I think the problem that CoX had when the iTrials were introduced was that it was going up against 8 years of older content that really never did this.

But you look at the raids in other games. Most of the boss fights have something "special" in their encounter, which can make or break the progression for that evening.

The thing that I enjoy in Wildstar, is not always the *completing* of the encounter, but the figuring out of how to achieve that goal with what our current raid setup is; taking into account players/character classes and their nuances[1]

One encounter setup that I do have a tendancy to enjoy right now is the setup where the games chooses 4 bosses from a pool of 5 and you have to defeat all 4 to progress.

Each boss has their own abilities/pattern.

Work out how to do it.

Even better, the setup can change each time you attempt it, so sometimes it ends up harder, other times it is a lot easier.

[1] Even if it means that a player has to play a spec that they are not keen on for one fight, because it saves the rest of the raid a whole load of pain, and makes it much faster overall.

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There should be a way to make

There should be a way to make a "Looking for Team/Looking for Team Mates" list. Teams should be able to form faster and it would certainly clear up the zone chat channel

If there is a string of related TFs, please do not make the reward a specific power needed to complete the next TF. I hated that about the I-trials because we were promised that players were going to be able to fine tune their chars as they saw fit. Instead, we were given a system that started to make all chars the same. It was intolerable

How about TFs specifically for solo players? I loved teaming because soloing, except with Brutes or Tankers, was an awful experience for me. If there were special TFs set up for soloers, even with lower level rewards, it would go a long way towards making my toons feel more heroic.

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I agree that finding a team

I agree that finding a team ought to be a process that has good mechanical controls in the game to facilitate it. On the other hand you have to understand that sometimes people who are trying to form a team are trying to NOT get people on it that they don't like, don't trust to pull their weight, etc. So some amount of difficulty in finding a team may arise from the people themselves not being able to "all just get along" in various ways. You might have a "looking for team" list that people can add their names to, then it ends up being the "join a group of 5 other clueless idiots" list so nobody uses it to make teams because they have friends and supergroup members they want to team with more.

I don't agree that the iTrials were structured such that you HAD to have specific powers gained in one to be able to do the next one. The Trials got harder in general as you went along, but I don't think that anything was specifically gated by which Incarnate Powers you had, or whether or not you had any specific one. That said, the level shifts were probably absolutely necessary as you got to the later trials, that I will admit. Some individuals devised strategies that caused them to want certain things, and that's probably true of a lot of things, but I think the Trials I did were generically doable enough that you weren't looking at a specific Lore pet or whatever as a hard yes/no requirement for being able to succeed at anything. Now the knock that the Incarnate powers were their own origin and really didn't fit into ANYONE'S character design theme in the first place is valid.

As for TFs for solo players, how would this differ from what we called a "mission story arc" in CoX? Those were a series of mission you got from a contact that culminated in like a SO drop at the end or something. If its just a matter of better gear drops at the end, ok. But I'm having trouble understanding what specifically was missing from missions and arcs that the TFs had (apart from the fact that TFs required a starting team size greater than 1to begin them). TFs could be repeated I guess, but then there were missions like that too, maybe not full arcs I guess. Is that it? When I soloed in CoX I used to do the Tip missions over and over again to get a Hero Merit every other day. Not terrible rewards for doing those same missions ad infinitum.

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A solo TF would have the same

A solo TF would have the same kind of Prestige element that a grouped TF has. The "OMG you did THAT" factor. It should be tougher and longer than regular mission arcs, probably be non-repeatable/level gated, and offer special rewards/badges at the end

It wouldn't be mandatory. But not everyone is a member of the Super-Dee-Duper League. Doing great deeds alone, isn't that part of the essence of what a SUPER hero is supposed to be?

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I personally felt that nobody

I personally felt that nobody on CoX, regardless of veteran status, skill, badges, or TFs done ever got any of the respect you're talking about based solely on a badge they wore. If anything, some people got recruited to lead iTrials because they had beta tested it, or done it before, etc. That was about it. I had the Charmer badge (the one for doing the Abandoned Sewer Trial). After wearing it for a while I noticed that everyone who knew what it was (and how hard it was to get) had one of their own and everyone else was totally clueless and ignored badges in general, if they even knew of their existence at all, or so it seemed. For this reason I think the Solo TF, as a way of garnering respect from other people, is not going to work. At least the iTrials needed multiple people to do them and as such you got to know who the pros were and who the scrubs were by working/playing beside them the whole time, first hand. With a solo thing there's nobody else there with you to actually make that distinction through personal experience teaming with you. All you have is the badge and the after-the-fact story to tell of how you did it, which as I just mentioned, never really impressed anyone as far as I could tell.

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HornetsNest wrote:
HornetsNest wrote:

A solo TF would have the same kind of Prestige element that a grouped TF has. The "OMG you did THAT" factor. It should be tougher and longer than regular mission arcs, probably be non-repeatable/level gated, and offer special rewards/badges at the end
It wouldn't be mandatory. But not everyone is a member of the Super-Dee-Duper League. Doing great deeds alone, isn't that part of the essence of what a SUPER hero is supposed to be?

Hmmm... I always think of it like a Business.
Alone, you can be very good and like by a very tiny community.
But with a Team (Avengers), you can be very good and be liked by Many communities, or countries even.

Who ever gets more attention, gets more Bonus swag from regular people that want to associate with you.
more associations, more benefits. etc... better Swag! :)

So, Solo... to me, shouldnt get better rewards than a whole team... as its also MORE Difficult to work together with others... so points to them for dealing with others, to achieve something Greater than Oneself could. ;)

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

HornetsNest wrote:
A solo TF would have the same kind of Prestige element that a grouped TF has. The "OMG you did THAT" factor. It should be tougher and longer than regular mission arcs, probably be non-repeatable/level gated, and offer special rewards/badges at the end
It wouldn't be mandatory. But not everyone is a member of the Super-Dee-Duper League. Doing great deeds alone, isn't that part of the essence of what a SUPER hero is supposed to be?

Hmmm... I always think of it like a Business.
Alone, you can be very good and like by a very tiny community.
But with a Team (Avengers), you can be very good and be liked by Many communities, or countries even.
Who ever gets more attention, gets more Bonus swag from regular people that want to associate with you.
more associations, more benefits. etc... better Swag! :)
So, Solo... to me, shouldnt get better rewards than a whole team... as its also MORE Difficult to work together with others... so points to them for dealing with others, to achieve something Greater than Oneself could. ;)

Strangely enough, I never said that a soloer should get "more" of a reward than a team. Just a nice drop and a unique badge.

Also, personal anecdotes don't mean anything. It's like eyewitness testimony at a trial: Viewed as unreliable. That's why this thing called "forensics' became a more common form of evidence.

Only the Data Miners would know for sure. Oh, they got fired by NCSoft for sharing that information? *sigh*

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Are you suggesting that there

Are you suggesting that there might be some way to use badges and individual player stats to data mine how much respect people paid to other people in CoX, or that there would have been if the game were not shut down? Because if that is your argument, I personally don't believe it. It seems to me the best way to determine what a person's reputation is is to talk to the people that know them and find out what their opinions of that person are, in other words, to rely on "eyewitness testimony". I mean, what the hell IS respect if not the high opinion of people who know you? And if all you EVER do is solo and nobody ever does get to play side by side with you and build a rep, then I still personally believe that the respect you want is going to be very hard to get given that you and the people whose respect you want are essentially perfect strangers. I mean, most people who played Pac Man didn't check the high scores and then make mental note to lavish their respect on the high scorer when they didn't even know who he or she was in the first place.

I can believe that a person who witnessed a particular crime might not be able to correctly identify the perpetrator ib court months later if they don't know the person, the lighting wasn't very good, it all happened so fast, they didn't have a good look at him, they were too far away to see everything well, their glasses weren't clean, etc. You can understand why the witnesses in those cases wouldn't remember what color shirt the guy was wearing, etc. But asking someone "Did you ever base your personal opinion of another gamer on the badges they were wearing at the time?" and getting the answer "No, I mostly ignored that stuff, I based my opinion on what it was like playing through TFs with them, and if they seemed to know their stuff and whatever, I thought of them as a pro." is not a situation where the "eyewitness" is going to be unreliable in the usual sense, as far as I'm concerned. Other people may have given a crap about badges that people wore, I never met any of those people in my 8 year long, on and off play of CoX. I personally never heard anyone say "Wow, so and so has such and such badge, they must be goooood." That said, regardless of badge, everyone on Triumph circa 2011 -12 knew Snow Globe was "the man" when it came to leading iTrials, he didn't have to wear any badges to prove it, his reputation preceded him among those in the know.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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HornetsNest wrote:
HornetsNest wrote:

A solo TF would have the same kind of Prestige element that a grouped TF has. The "OMG you did THAT" factor. It should be tougher and longer than regular mission arcs, probably be non-repeatable/level gated, and offer special rewards/badges at the end
It wouldn't be mandatory. But not everyone is a member of the Super-Dee-Duper League. Doing great deeds alone, isn't that part of the essence of what a SUPER hero is supposed to be?

Agreed! When I soloed ITF it wouldn't have been as impressive or as fun if they had some easy mode for soloers.

And yes, part of it was just knowing how to build a scrapper to survive enough and dish out enough damage to do it, but it was still a part of the game that shouldn't be made easier so someone can solo it.

I would agree that maybe allowing someone to enter into it solo would be a good idea. I believe most MMOs allow this now, as you can just enter it and go even without the right amount of players (CoH never allowed this).

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

I believe most MMOs allow this now, as you can just enter it and go even without the right amount of players (CoH never allowed this).

Pretty much. You might not necessarily be able to use the LFG interface to get the "quick entrance" to the dungeon, but there is nothing stopping you from taking an unsuitable team setup (either in classes or numbers or both) and walking in through the front door as it were to start it.

*goes back to farming Stonetalon Lair solo*

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Allowing people to try to

Allowing people to try to solo a TF that is ostensibly designed for a team of 2+ people is one thing, making "solo TFs" by design is something else, as Brand X has said. I don't know which was requested and which I was thinking of, so my apologies on that. Obviously, if someone solos a TF meant for a large team, you'd give them props. Of course, this REQUIRES the TF itself to be "designed for a team" in the first place, otherwise it's not so impressive ("ooooh you soloed some soloable content, clap...........clap........").

Also, you still have the problem of people needing to actually be aware of your accomplishments, and I still don't think that a badge will do that. Even if they had a badge specifically for soloing the ITF, I think a lot of the people who played CoX weren't looking at the badges, period, so you won't win their respect that way. you'd probably need to take a video of it and post it to YouTube for those people interested in such things.

On the question of "team size requirements" as a thing though, for what it's worth, I personally think that to have true "team oriented content" you often need to force the issue and make people form a team to do it. Otherwise I think the fact that most people will solo as their default option or only team with people they know will cause a lot of PUG TFs not to happen. And that would be a loss. CoX was a game designed and run by people who had a very "group play" mentality and tried to encourage/muscle people into teaming up wherever they could. I know a lot of soloists disliked that, but I personally don't hate the "you must have a team to start this" requirements of TFs.

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Couldn't some badges be set

Couldn't some badges be set as a title after your character's name?
I'm pretty sure they could in COH.
That would allow you to show off your badge by setting it as your title
and give you a choice of which title to show off.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Allowing people to try to solo a TF that is ostensibly designed for a team of 2+ people is one thing, making "solo TFs" by design is something else, as Brand X has said. I don't know which was requested and which I was thinking of, so my apologies on that. Obviously, if someone solos a TF meant for a large team, you'd give them props. Of course, this REQUIRES the TF itself to be "designed for a team" in the first place, otherwise it's not so impressive ("ooooh you soloed some soloable content, clap...........clap........").
Also, you still have the problem of people needing to actually be aware of your accomplishments, and I still don't think that a badge will do that. Even if they had a badge specifically for soloing the ITF, I think a lot of the people who played CoX weren't looking at the badges, period, so you won't win their respect that way. you'd probably need to take a video of it and post it to YouTube for those people interested in such things.
On the question of "team size requirements" as a thing though, for what it's worth, I personally think that to have true "team oriented content" you often need to force the issue and make people form a team to do it. Otherwise I think the fact that most people will solo as their default option or only team with people they know will cause a lot of PUG TFs not to happen. And that would be a loss. CoX was a game designed and run by people who had a very "group play" mentality and tried to encourage/muscle people into teaming up wherever they could. I know a lot of soloists disliked that, but I personally don't hate the "you must have a team to start this" requirements of TFs.

Going to have to disagree. In my experience (with FFXIV being the most recent) team content by itself will have people grabbing a team.

What we might run into is hardcore soloers whining they may not have any way of soloing a dungeon, but to them, you just say "Oh well." :p Team content should be team content, if people can work to solo it, awesome, if not, then get a team or realize some things won't be soloable (by them, maybe by others though).

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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

A Comedy, Tonight!
Sorry, I saw the thread title and couldn't resist. ^_^

LOL! I played that part in our community theater production of AFTHOTWTTF!

Team content FTW! Couldn't agree more.
And maybe it's obvious, but the intriguing story-arc missions are must have more and more as well. I'd love to see a level 1 mission that is relevant with end-game content.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Radiac wrote:
Allowing people to try to solo a TF that is ostensibly designed for a team of 2+ people is one thing, making "solo TFs" by design is something else, as Brand X has said. I don't know which was requested and which I was thinking of, so my apologies on that. Obviously, if someone solos a TF meant for a large team, you'd give them props. Of course, this REQUIRES the TF itself to be "designed for a team" in the first place, otherwise it's not so impressive ("ooooh you soloed some soloable content, clap...........clap........").
Also, you still have the problem of people needing to actually be aware of your accomplishments, and I still don't think that a badge will do that. Even if they had a badge specifically for soloing the ITF, I think a lot of the people who played CoX weren't looking at the badges, period, so you won't win their respect that way. you'd probably need to take a video of it and post it to YouTube for those people interested in such things.
On the question of "team size requirements" as a thing though, for what it's worth, I personally think that to have true "team oriented content" you often need to force the issue and make people form a team to do it. Otherwise I think the fact that most people will solo as their default option or only team with people they know will cause a lot of PUG TFs not to happen. And that would be a loss. CoX was a game designed and run by people who had a very "group play" mentality and tried to encourage/muscle people into teaming up wherever they could. I know a lot of soloists disliked that, but I personally don't hate the "you must have a team to start this" requirements of TFs.

Going to have to disagree. In my experience (with FFXIV being the most recent) team content by itself will have people grabbing a team.
What we might run into is hardcore soloers whining they may not have any way of soloing a dungeon, but to them, you just say "Oh well." :p Team content should be team content, if people can work to solo it, awesome, if not, then get a team or realize some things won't be soloable (by them, maybe by others though).

If I'm hearing you right, Brand X, I agree, but I think we're talking about TFs that consist of missions that don't scale down for the smaller teams/soloists per se. For example, in CoX there WERE ways you could solo many of the TFs in there, as long as you could solo the AV at the end. All you had to do was form a team, start the TF, then let everyone else quit out of it. That left you as the only person left on the TF and a lot of the mission maps would spawn "light" and you could solo those parts without much of a problem.

So if you're saying "Let the TFs spawn for an appropriate sized team whether there is one or not, then let people of any size team, including soloists, try their best." I'm for that. I'm in favor of making the TFs have no hard requirement but strongly urging a minimum team size that's appropriate given the missions and their spawn sizes, and the AV, etc, as long as you're NOT scaling down the encounters in the mission maps as smaller teams start to go into them, great.

I think players might complain mightily about this though. You start with 6 people, two of them have to leave and you end up not finishing because of that, etc. This makes actually finishing the TFs that much harder and thus makes them that much more of an accomplishment when you do, so I like it, but the impatient and unlucky will likely complain to the devs about it a lot, I feel.

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Stutty wrote:
Stutty wrote:

And maybe it's obvious, but the intriguing story-arc missions are must have more and more as well. I'd love to see a level 1 mission that is relevant with end-game content.

I'm definitely down with this idea. Something that makes lowbie missions relevant in the grand story.

Also, decisions made in lower-level missions that actually affect later missions. You encounter this minor con artist while pursuing a supervillain. You can let him go or turn him into the police, and your decision affects not only your alignment matrix, but whether he turns up in a mission 20 levels later and helps you fight a difficult boss. Maybe not via fighting by your side, but by revealing a hidden cache of temp powers or something. I've seen similar things done in some other MMOs and it kinda ties the story together over time, while not being a requirement to proceed with the plot.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Something I find is lacking

Something I find is lacking in MMOs is PVP. Reason? There's not enough variety. This is maybe a suggestion for post launch, but it would be cool to have sort of a "game master" npc that pulls warriors of all sorts into his own universe where they are put into different scenarios to see who would win in a fight. They do this sort of thing all the time in the marvel universe (especially x-men). This would allow diverse modes of pvp with different mechanics to be possible. For example having a choice to play a smite style moba, 1 v 1 fights , capture the flag etc. with your character. You could even liven things up with tournaments and leagues and stuff. Also levelling the playing field by only allowing players to bring a certain of powers into the battle field and having to level them up somehow throughout each match in order to use them. Then again it could be an awful idea that divides the community and kills the game. Just throwing it out there though because if implemented properly it could be pretty cool.

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sev171 wrote:
sev171 wrote:

Something I find is lacking in MMOs is PVP. Reason?

PvPers ... as a group ... are NEVER satisfied.

MMOs are (or at least, should be) inherently cooperative endeavors.
In PvP, the incentive, purpose and bragging rights are all oriented around inherently competitive endeavors.
This pits the fundamental underlying forces of intent and design against each other.

Pretty much every PvP scenario, strategy and tactic aims for and rewards the "quick kill" above all others. Shorten your opponent's response time to ensure the greatest chances of your own success. There is a competitive pressure to find the "fastest" way to dispatch other Players, consistently ... and the victims of such methods will complain bitterly and unceasingly. EVERYONE is on the hunt for the "IWIN!" button.

Open world PvP rarely involves anything that could be properly considered "dueling" and most often takes the form of assassinations and "ganking" of other Players. The very systems that make PvP possible in the game come under attack, exploits are found, and ... exploited ... ruthlessly. It is just the nature of the beast. The rewards of success promote and reward "griefing" of other Players.

Players complain (LOUDLY) about anything that impairs, or worse, prevents, them from being able to control their character (see: Mez).

I still think that the baseline attitude and expectations (and demands) of PvP can be summed up most eloquently in the following formulation:

I am Scissors.
Paper is fine.
NERF ROCK!


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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

Brand X wrote:
Radiac wrote:
Allowing people to try to solo a TF that is ostensibly designed for a team of 2+ people is one thing, making "solo TFs" by design is something else, as Brand X has said. I don't know which was requested and which I was thinking of, so my apologies on that. Obviously, if someone solos a TF meant for a large team, you'd give them props. Of course, this REQUIRES the TF itself to be "designed for a team" in the first place, otherwise it's not so impressive ("ooooh you soloed some soloable content, clap...........clap........").
Also, you still have the problem of people needing to actually be aware of your accomplishments, and I still don't think that a badge will do that. Even if they had a badge specifically for soloing the ITF, I think a lot of the people who played CoX weren't looking at the badges, period, so you won't win their respect that way. you'd probably need to take a video of it and post it to YouTube for those people interested in such things.
On the question of "team size requirements" as a thing though, for what it's worth, I personally think that to have true "team oriented content" you often need to force the issue and make people form a team to do it. Otherwise I think the fact that most people will solo as their default option or only team with people they know will cause a lot of PUG TFs not to happen. And that would be a loss. CoX was a game designed and run by people who had a very "group play" mentality and tried to encourage/muscle people into teaming up wherever they could. I know a lot of soloists disliked that, but I personally don't hate the "you must have a team to start this" requirements of TFs.

Going to have to disagree. In my experience (with FFXIV being the most recent) team content by itself will have people grabbing a team.
What we might run into is hardcore soloers whining they may not have any way of soloing a dungeon, but to them, you just say "Oh well." :p Team content should be team content, if people can work to solo it, awesome, if not, then get a team or realize some things won't be soloable (by them, maybe by others though).

If I'm hearing you right, Brand X, I agree, but I think we're talking about TFs that consist of missions that don't scale down for the smaller teams/soloists per se. For example, in CoX there WERE ways you could solo many of the TFs in there, as long as you could solo the AV at the end. All you had to do was form a team, start the TF, then let everyone else quit out of it. That left you as the only person left on the TF and a lot of the mission maps would spawn "light" and you could solo those parts without much of a problem.
So if you're saying "Let the TFs spawn for an appropriate sized team whether there is one or not, then let people of any size team, including soloists, try their best." I'm for that. I'm in favor of making the TFs have no hard requirement but strongly urging a minimum team size that's appropriate given the missions and their spawn sizes, and the AV, etc, as long as you're NOT scaling down the encounters in the mission maps as smaller teams start to go into them, great.
I think players might complain mightily about this though. You start with 6 people, two of them have to leave and you end up not finishing because of that, etc. This makes actually finishing the TFs that much harder and thus makes them that much more of an accomplishment when you do, so I like it, but the impatient and unlucky will likely complain to the devs about it a lot, I feel.

This is why you have it so you can have new players join in. Just because CoH didn't allow this, doesn't mean CoT can't allow it to happen.

In FFXIV if a person drops in a dungeon, it doesn't get easier, however you can get someone new to replace them, and if done through the group finder, they get a bonus reward.

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sev171 wrote:
sev171 wrote:

Something I find is lacking in MMOs is PVP. Reason? There's not enough variety. This is maybe a suggestion for post launch, but it would be cool to have sort of a "game master" npc that pulls warriors of all sorts into his own universe where they are put into different scenarios to see who would win in a fight. They do this sort of thing all the time in the marvel universe (especially x-men). This would allow diverse modes of pvp with different mechanics to be possible. For example having a choice to play a smite style moba, 1 v 1 fights , capture the flag etc. with your character. You could even liven things up with tournaments and leagues and stuff. Also levelling the playing field by only allowing players to bring a certain of powers into the battle field and having to level them up somehow throughout each match in order to use them. Then again it could be an awful idea that divides the community and kills the game. Just throwing it out there though because if implemented properly it could be pretty cool.

In my experience with CoH, I found most PvPers to be idiots. When you go into a zone for PvP and then decide to one on one it, don't get upset when someone just enters the zone, has no idea a one on one is happening and joins in.

Hell, they shouldn't have gotten upset in the first place because CoH had arenas to take their one on one fights.

Basically, hardcore PvPers tend to be idiots. :p

For PvP to really work without complaints, they need a FPS everyone is equal. Then it's all skill, get into other things, and what do you always hear? Such and such class is the best! Nerf it! Buff this class!

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

sev171 wrote:
Something I find is lacking in MMOs is PVP. Reason?
PvPers ... as a group ... are NEVER satisfied.
MMOs are (or at least, should be) inherently cooperative endeavors.
In PvP, the incentive, purpose and bragging rights are all oriented around inherently competitive endeavors.
This pits the fundamental underlying forces of intent and design against each other.
Pretty much every PvP scenario, strategy and tactic aims for and rewards the "quick kill" above all others. Shorten your opponent's response time to ensure the greatest chances of your own success. There is a competitive pressure to find the "fastest" way to dispatch other Players, consistently ... and the victims of such methods will complain bitterly and unceasingly. EVERYONE is on the hunt for the "IWIN!" button.
Open world PvP rarely involves anything that could be properly considered "dueling" and most often takes the form of assassinations and "ganking" of other Players. The very systems that make PvP possible in the game come under attack, exploits are found, and ... exploited ... ruthlessly. It is just the nature of the beast. The rewards of success promote and reward "griefing" of other Players.
Players complain (LOUDLY) about anything that impairs, or worse, prevents, them from being able to control their character (see: Mez).
I still think that the baseline attitude and expectations (and demands) of PvP can be summed up most eloquently in the following formulation:
I am Scissors.
Paper is fine.NERF ROCK!

Wow Red
You and I really do have a lot in common

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Wow Red
You and I really do have a lot in common

No need to look so surprised, Paladin. My disagreements with you have merely been with the assertions you made ... not with the honor, integrity or intelligence of the person making those assertions. I have questioned the wisdom of what you say, not the right that you have to say it.

Which is just a high-falutin' and pompus way of saying there's no reason why we can't have things in common, or share common beliefs and perspectives.

At its root, PvP is a "very different animal" from PvE ... and it brings out different aspects in people and attracts a different set of personalities and reward structures. In my experience, PvP is rarely (if ever) compatible with PvE, simply because the goals and intentions of one must be sacrificed to achieve the other. As already mentioned, pretty much the only "fair" PvP system is the cookie-cutter, in which everyone starts out the same, meaning that the only variables in the equation for determining supremacy are Player Skill (and even then you'll hear complaints/excuses about Lag!).

The simple fact is that no one likes to lose ... and in PvP, at least one Player (and often times many more than one) HAVE TO LOSE ... and that can turn people off, and it can also turn them into bullies and predators. There's a reason why I say that PvPers are NEVER satisfied ... because I've never seen a MMORPG where they are, consistently, over the long haul. It just doesn't happen.


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In DDO, on the server I use,

In DDO, on the server I use, PVP is almost always empty.

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I agree with Red on the PVP

I agree with Red on the PVP angle. The reason these people are never satisfied is because they all want the same thing, to dominate and crush everyone else. Therefore you will always end up with exactly ONE person who is happy and the rest will be sad, angry, and bitter. They will blame their losses on everything but themselves and complain that the devs ought to do something about it, because "it's not fair how the game works and they WOULD have won if not for Inherent Problem X that the devs ought to fix...", etc.

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All very good points. I

All very good points. I absolutely agree. PVP is an entirely different animal than PVE which is exactly why it should be separate and structured differently. I've seen mmos try and incorporate pvp into pve and generally it turns out terrible for pveers who want to enjoy the world and the story without having high level enemies camp at their objectives for quests and constantly wreck their day. For games that don't have pvp in the open world, the pvp generally uses a modified version of the pve game mechanics causing dry and unbalanced game play. This is why I'm suggesting this separation. Make a whole bunch of different pvp environments with somewhat different mechanics than pve. let each player pick only like 4 of their skills that they unlock throughout the games and start them off at lvl 1 each game. This would level the playing field and make pvp feel more competitive than one op guy that makes it so no one else can move and crushes everyone. This is why games like league and super smash bros are popular competitive games. They are based on skill rather than abilities that you have acquired fighting against ais so you can over power everyone else by default. Of course people would still complain, but at least it would be more fun. Personally I tend to avoid pvp because the game play is either really boring or it's empty. I am a competitive person though, so I would like to have some kind of fun and rewarding pvp experience that requires both skill and tactics.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

sev171 wrote:
Something I find is lacking in MMOs is PVP. Reason?
PvPers ... as a group ... are NEVER satisfied.
MMOs are (or at least, should be) inherently cooperative endeavors.
In PvP, the incentive, purpose and bragging rights are all oriented around inherently competitive endeavors.
This pits the fundamental underlying forces of intent and design against each other.
Pretty much every PvP scenario, strategy and tactic aims for and rewards the "quick kill" above all others. Shorten your opponent's response time to ensure the greatest chances of your own success. There is a competitive pressure to find the "fastest" way to dispatch other Players, consistently ... and the victims of such methods will complain bitterly and unceasingly. EVERYONE is on the hunt for the "IWIN!" button.
Open world PvP rarely involves anything that could be properly considered "dueling" and most often takes the form of assassinations and "ganking" of other Players. The very systems that make PvP possible in the game come under attack, exploits are found, and ... exploited ... ruthlessly. It is just the nature of the beast. The rewards of success promote and reward "griefing" of other Players.
Players complain (LOUDLY) about anything that impairs, or worse, prevents, them from being able to control their character (see: Mez).
I still think that the baseline attitude and expectations (and demands) of PvP can be summed up most eloquently in the following formulation:
I am Scissors.
Paper is fine.NERF ROCK!

While it is possible to have team vs team confrontations/competitions that do NOT involve direct combat - I generally agree. Which is why I'm hopeful that the devs will concentrate more on the PvE side of the game.

Now - I'm not saying that I don't want to see PVP in the game - or that the devs shouldn't take PvE into account when designing the game, or that I will never delve into the PVP side of the game, but just that I think the PvE side will be more popular and a more integral part of the MMO experience - at least with the crowd that will likely be attracted to this style of MMO.

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There's just one problem with

There's just one problem with that ... at that point you're making, and needing to support, a whole different game. The differences between the two worlds become too great and they shear themselves apart. Furthermore, development resources are not unlimited (much as we might wish that they were!). Finite resources means ZERO SUM GAME for the allocation of those resources ... and guess how "accommodating" Players are when resources get spent on a portion of the game that they're not interested in playing (first two guesses don't count).

It's wonderful to BELIEVE that all of these things can be reconciled, and maintained, easily and with little effort or overhead. After all, it's "easy" to imagine things working out that way. The problem is that the "reality" is nowhere near as simple as the fantasy, and theory can only get you so far.

City of Heroes attempted exactly the course that you have described.

It did not end well.

Other games have also attempted exactly what you have described.

They have not been entirely successful either, in one way or another.

I will however cite a counter example of my pessimistic view. In Tabula Rasa there were Friday Night Fights ... an entirely Player developed culture of PvP that revolved around ... BOXING ... if you can believe that. Eventually, the developers created a Boxing Ring environment, creating a "level playing field" where terrain became a non-issue, as well as costume parts (boxing trunks and boots) as well as weapons (boxing gloves) to support the rudimentary PvP the Event relied on.

Ultimately, it turned into a Lowbie vs Lowbie friendly PvP ... in which the cookie cutter (ie. Level 4 only) worked as the great equalizer. Customization options were incredibly limited, enforcing the "fairness" of the fights. Players would develop characters specifically oriented around this activity, and the barrier to entry was almost comically low (a new character could be readied in less than an hour). This created a Mano-a-Mano PvP environment, in which honor between fighters was prized and the reward was acclaim from the competitors, who could all watch the matches. It was a sport as much for the spectators as it was for the participants, which fostered a community who organized themselves around it, in friendly competition.

So it can be done ... but you'll notice that the example I'm citing is one that isn't open to Endgame PCs.


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Interdictor wrote:
Interdictor wrote:

While it is possible to have team vs team confrontations/competitions that do NOT involve direct combat - I generally agree. Which is why I'm hopeful that the devs will concentrate more on the PvE side of the game.
Now - I'm not saying that I don't want to see PVP in the game - or that the devs shouldn't take PvE into account when designing the game, or that I will never delve into the PVP side of the game, but just that I think the PvE side will be more popular and a more integral part of the MMO experience - at least with the crowd that will likely be attracted to this style of MMO.

This is why whenever this subject comes up, I'm always advocating for what I like to call PvEvP ... in which Players "compete" with each other, indirectly, through the medium of the Environment. The best example of this sort of thinking would be the *often* requested, but never implemented in City of Heroes ... Big Red Ball.

So rather than have PCs fight each other directly (PvP), instead they can interact "competitively" with an Object (PvE) to achieve an objective. Think soccer/football if it helps ... or something akin to the holodeck game Velocity from Star Trek. Heck, even tug-of-war using a rope would be an example of PvEvP, in which participants "fight" each other for dominance through a medium of an object between the competitors.

More advanced examples of PvEvP could include "capture the flag" and territorial competitions, in which the PCs aren't "gunning" for each other directly ... but do have competing objectives and ways to fight/interfere with each other through the medium of the game's environment.

I am personally of the opinion that PvEvP holds far greater promise for City of Titans than a direct PvP type of gameplay would have to offer. For one thing, PvEvP can be viewed as being ... sporting ... in ways that PvP rarely allows for (or acknowledges).


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Man. So sad that they did

Man. So sad that they did that and it didn't work out. Just thought I'd throw something out there. That PvEvP idea is sweet though. I just kinda hope that there will be something competitive that is interesting and players want to be a part of. PvE of course ALWAYS comes first and resources should be spent there first because story is awesome. It's just when endgame comes I generally get bored of grinding against ais. Hopefully they'll make something competitive taht is awesome post launch.